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α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
The authors propose a framework for the analysis of social choice and welfare which uses the informational basis of individual preference orderings over the pairs of conventionally defined social alternatives and social decision-making mechanisms. In particular, they consider the case where the decision-making mechanism is a rights-structure modeled as game forms. The authors use this framework to clarify the role for individual preferences in conferring rights, in the realization of the conferred rights, and in describing the formal contents of rights. They also explore its implications for the controversial issue of the consistency of social choice and A. K. Sen's paradox of Paretian libertarianism. Copyright 1996 by Royal Economic Society.