Independence Axioms in Social Ranking

Abstract

Independence from non-essential changes in input information is a widely recognized axiom in social choice theory. This independence reduces the cost of specifying and/or analyzing non-essential data. This study makes a comprehensive analysis of independence axioms in the context of social ranking solutions (SRSs). We consider seven independence axioms (two of which are new) and provide a novel characterization of the lexicographic excellence solution and plurality by substituting these independence axioms in the existing characterization of the intersection initial segment rule. The characterizations highlight the differences among the three SRSs in terms of independence.