Social Preferences over Ordinal Outcomes

Ambuehl, Sandro; Bernheim, B. Douglas

doi:10.1257/aer.20211491

Abstract

We study social preferences in settings where someone who chooses on behalf of others knows how those individuals rank the available options but may lack cardinal information concerning those comparisons. Contrary to majoritarian principles, most people place more weight on pre- venting least-preferred outcomes for others than on enabling most-preferred outcomes. Ranks matter both intrinsically and because they provide a basis for inferring cardinal utility. Ordinal aggregation principles are stable across domains and countries with divergent political traditions. Designing attractive social choice mechanisms is challenging in practice partly because aggre- gation principles that make manipulation diffcult yield outcomes people consider normatively unappealing.

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