Strategy-proofness of social welfare functions: The use of the Kemeny distance between preference orderings

The Kemeny distance for preference orderings is used to determine individual rankings of social preferences. Based on this distance function, the strategy-proofness of social welfare functions is examined. Our main result is an impossibility theorem stating that no social welfare function can be strategy-proof, if some additional properties are required.The work on this paper initiated while Walter Bossert was a visitor at the CentER for Economic Research at Tilburg University. The hospitality and the support of CentER and its members are gratefully acknowledged. Ton Storcken's research was supported by a grant from the Cooperation Centre Tilburg and Eindhoven University. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 1991 Canadian Economic Theory Meeting in Toronto. We thank the participants and especially Ingrid Peters-Fransen for comments. Substantial improvements are due to the suggestions of Bernard Monjardet and two referees.