A Note on Binary Strategy-Proof Social Choice Functions

Abstract

Let Φn be the set of the binary strategy-proof social choice functions referred to a group of n voters who are allowed to declare indifference between the alternatives. We provide a recursive way to obtain the set Φn+1 from the set Φn. Computing the cardinalities |Φn| presents difficulties as the computation of the Dedekind numbers. The latter give the analogous number of social choice functions when only strict preferences are admitted. A comparison is given for the known values. Based on our results, we present a graphical description of the binary strategy-proof social choice functions in the case of three voters.

Keywords

• binary social choice functions
• strategy-proofness
• indifference
• monotonicity
• Dedekind numbers