Social choice with analytic preferences

Arrow's axioms for social welfare functions are shown to be inconsistent when the set of alternatives is the nonnegative orthant in a multidimensional Euclidean space and preferences are assumed to be either the set of analytic classical economic preferences or the set of Euclidean spatial preferences. When either of these preference domains is combined with an agenda domain consisting of compact sets with nonempty interiors, strengthened versions of the Arrovian social choice correspondence axioms are shown to be consistent. To help establish the economic possibility theorem, an ordinal version of the Analytic Continuation Principle is developed. Received: 4 July 2000/Accepted: 2 April 2001     

Life Domain Satisfaction: A Portugal–France Comparison

The study was aimed at replicating on a Portuguese sample the seven-factor model of life appraisal (physical autonomy, love life, family life, social life, occupational life, finances, and leisure life) that was suggested by Salvatore and Munoz Sastre Social Indicators Research 53:229–255 (2001). A sample of 1,111 Portuguese participants, aged 17–85, was presented with the Appraisal of Life Questionnaire. The “domain” model of life appraisal satisfactorily accounted for the data gathered on the Portuguese sample. Regarding finances and occupational life, Portuguese scores were lower than French scores. Regarding the occupational score and the leisure score, a clear linear decrease as a function of age was evidenced in the Portuguese sample. Finally, regarding the family score and the financial score, a non-linear relationship with age was found. An increase was observed from young adult age to adult age, and a decrease was observed from adult age to older age. A strong decrease in the physical autonomy scores among Portuguese females was also observed.     

Irish women and street politics, 1956–1973: ‘This could be contagious’ by Keenan-Thomson,T.

Group work is viewed as a substantive tool for meeting many of the needs of persons served in our health and welfare system. Group work has a proud history of service in traditional group service agencies and there is evidence indicating that schools of social work must continue to train future generations of practitioners to serve ever-broadening populations of children, families, and the elderly with regard to social interactional needs created in our society through depersonalization and isolation. The use of groups to serve school populations, the physically and educationally handicapped, and high-risk elderly Americans is detailed. Educational directions for schools of social work are discussed.     

Age,religious beliefs,and sexual attitudes

Age effects on sexual attitudes were examined using the Hendrick and Hendrick (1987a) Sexual Attitude Scale. The study was cross-sectional, including people from various age groups, from young adults to older adults. The religious beliefs variable, which covaries substantially both with age and sexual attitudes, was controlled. Three main questions guided the study: (a) Is the four-factor structure (Permissiveness, Instrumentality, Communion, and Sexual Practices) previously identified in a sample of young students able to accurately account for data gathered over a full range of adult ages, (b) are older adults much less permissive and less instrumentalist than young people, and (c) to what extent are believers less permissive and instrumentalist than young people when age is taken into account? Factor analyses showed that at least five correlated factors were needed to account for the data; the fourth factor, Sexual Practices, divided itself into two distinct factors: Pleasure and Responsibility. Older adults and believers were shown to be less permissive than young people and nonbelievers, and this result held regardless of the participants educational level. As regards to instrumentality, however, the pattern of differences was extremely complex.     

Arrovian theorems for economic domains: Assignments,matchings and pairings

In this paper, we show that Arrow's and Wilson's theorems hold for permutation, symmetric permutation and symmetric domains. Permutation domains concern assignments: n indivisible private goods are distributed betweenn selfish individuals. Symmetric permutation domains concern matchings: two sets ofn selfish individuals being given, pairs with an individual from each set are to be made. Symmetric domains concern pairings: a set of 2n selfish individuals being given,n pairs of individuals are to be made.We thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

Gamson’s law and hedonic games

This note adds one celebrated coalition formation game due to Gamson (Am Soc Rev 26:373–382 1961a, Am Soc Rev 26:565–573, 1961b) in the list of applications of the theory of hedonic games explored by Banerjee et al. (Soc Choice Welf 18:135–153, 2001) and Bogomolnaia and Jackson (Games Econ Behav 38: 204–230, 2002). We apply their results to study the original Gamson game and offer extensions both to a multi-dimensional characteristics space and to an infinite number of players.