Do we agree? Measuring the cohesiveness of preferences
- Alcalde Unzu, Jorge
- Vorsatz, Marc
ISSN: 1696-7496
Year of publication: 2010
Issue: 23
Pages: 1-38
Type: Working paper
More publications in: Documentos de trabajo ( FEDEA )
Abstract
In this paper, we suggest new ways of how to measure the similarity of preferences in a group of individuals. For simplicity, we refer to this as the cohesiveness (of preferences). We propose axioms a cohesiveness measure should satisfy and show that these properties fully characterize a family of measures. According to it, the similarities between each pair of objects in a preference profile - calculated as the proportion margin by which one objects wins against the other in a pairwise comparison - are aggregated by a weighted mean. The weight of each pair of objects depends on their importance at the social level.