Social choice theory

Academic discipline

Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that analyzes methods of combining individual opinions, beliefs, or preferences to reach a collective decision or create measures of social well-being. It contrasts with political science in that it is a normative field that studies how societies should make decisions, whereas political science is descriptive. Social choice incorporates insights from economics, mathematics, philosophy, political science, and game theory to find the best ways to combine individual preferences into a coherent whole, called a social welfare function.

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