Separable Relations on Cartesian Product Sets
by
Jonathan K. Hodge
Western Michigan University

In problems involving social choice and collective decision-making, voters are often required to express simultaneously their preferences on several possibly related issues. A classic example is the referendum election, in which a voter must choose between a yes or no vote for each question or proposal. A voter’s preferences on a subset of issues are said to be separable if they do not depend on the election outcome for issues outside the subset. In this talk we will study separability and other related notions of dependence from within the context of a general model of voter preferences.

Date received: April 19, 2001