Multi-attribute decision-making in individual and social choice

This paper provides an analysis of individual and social decision criteria for alternatives that are composed of several attributes. We derive additive and multiplicative criteria for individual decision-making with new axioms and apply these criteria to obtain new justifications of known social choice rules with a bargaining interpretation, namely, the generalized utilitarian and Nash social choice functions. Unlike most axiomatizations of bargaining solutions, our approach is, to a large extent, based on the multi-attribute structure of the underlying alternatives and the resulting individual decision criteria instead of axioms that impose restrictions on the choice function directly. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Nos.: D81, D71, C78. ∗ We thank the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) for financial support under grant no. B46-363.