Liberal Paradox in Extended Framework

Abstract

Since Sen (1970) made contribution on the liberal paradox, his impossibility theorem has been debated in the literature for a long time. Some economists criticized the Sen’s formulation of rights and some economists had tried to find some resolution schemes to solve this impossibility theorem. Although the literature of this reseach lasts long time, we also think that there also exists research value in this field. In this paper, we will explore the rationality of Sen’s impossibility theorem again. But we will give up the original framework used by Sen and use the extended framework which refers to individuals’ preferences for social decision-making system. Then we will give an analysis of a resolution scheme proposed by Suzumura (1983) to testify whether this resolution scheme is still feasible in extended framework. Totally speaking, in this paper, we will concentrate on the extended framework and futher analyse the Sen’s liberal paradox. So we will discuss more details in the later sections.