SSCW

Charles Blackorby

Admin — 2026-10-22T18:12:11Z

Charles Blackorby, known as Chuck, grew up in Pembina, ND, a small town on the Canadian border. After obtaining a B.A. from Harvard in 1963, he completed his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1967. Kelvin Lancaster was his thesis supervisor. Chuck had academic appointments at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1970–1972), Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (1972–1975), the University of British Columbia (1974–2002), and the University of Warwick (2002–2010). He was an Associate Member of GREQAM in Marseille since 1989 and a CIREQ Associate Research Fellow in Montreal since 2001. Upon retirement, he and his wife, the economist Margaret Slade, returned to live in Vancouver.

Chuck received numerous awards and distinctions. He was a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the Canadian Economics Association, a Killam Prize Laureate, and the recipient of the Jacob Bieley Award from the University of British Columba. He served as President of the Canadian Economics Association in 2000–2001. Chuck delivered the Innis Lecture at the CEA's annual meeting in 1990 and the Arrow Lecture at the meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare in 2004.

Chuck published over 100 articles in journals and edited volumes, two monographs, and one co-edited volume. His journal articles most frequently appeared in Econometrica, the Journal of Economic Theory, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Public Economics, Social Choice and Welfare, the International Economic Review, and the Canadian Journal of Economics.

Chuck enjoyed working with colleagues, with the consequence that he had a rather large number of co-authors. Particularly long-lasting collaborations were those with Bob Russell and Dan Primont, who he met while teaching in Santa Barbara, and with David Donaldson and Walter Bossert that began during his time at U.B.C. Donaldson was his most frequent co-author. Bill Schworm and John Weymark also wrote a number of articles with him.

Terence Gorman was an important early influence on Chuck's research. He and Tony Shorrocks co-edited The Collected Works of W. M. Gorman: Volume I (Oxford University Press, 1995). This collection includes editorial commentaries on the papers, a number of which had not previously been published.

Chuck was a microeconomic theorist. His early research focused on duality, separability, aggregation, functional structure, and dynamic consistency, topics that he on occasion later returned to. Chuck had a passionate interest in ethical issues, which is reflected in the fact that most of his publications after his arrival at U.B.C. were devoted to normative economics. In particular, he made major contributions to social choice theory, welfare economics, the measurement of inequality and poverty, the theoretical foundations and practical implementation of interpersonal comparisons of well-being, and population ethics. His work on welfare economics was wide ranging, addressing issues related to intergenerational equity, cost-benefit analysis, risk-benefit analysis, rational choice, and optimal tax and expenditure theory. On occasion, Chuck's research took him further afield, with contributions to topics ranging from general and partial equilibrium theory to international economics.

Soon after completing his Ph.D., Chuck became well-known for his fundamental contributions showing how duality theory can be employed to determine the functional structure implications of alternative separability assumptions, particularly in the context of consumer theory and producer theory. Much of this research was conducted with Primont and Russell and summarized in their joint book, Duality, Separability, and Functional Structure: Theory and Economic Applications (North–Holland, 1978). This volume is the authoritative monograph on this subject and is a must-read for anyone who contemplates working on these issues. Later, he built on this research in a series of articles with Schworm, including three that deal with aggregate measures of capital. This early research on separability and functional structure subsequently played an important role in Chuck's work on social choice and welfare economics.

Chuck's 1984 Journal of Public Economics article, "Social Criteria for Evaluating Population Change," written with Donaldson initiated the burgeoning subfield of formal population ethics. In this literature, the tools of social choice and welfare economics are used (i) to identify criteria for socially evaluating alternatives that involve variable population sizes and (ii) to apply these criteria to concrete problems in which the actions taken affect the number of people or sentient beings who exist. The 1984 article is notable for the introduction of a novel utilitarian class of variable-population social-evaluation criteria –-critical-level utilitarianism––that avoids some flaws inherent in average and total utilitarianism. This class has been extensively studied in the subsequent literature. Beginning in the early 1990s, Blackorby and Donaldson joined forces with Bossert to write a series of papers on formal population ethics. Most of their work on this topic has been synthesized in Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2005). This volume is known for its innovative contributions to the field, its rigor, and its philosophical sophistication. This monograph, and many of Chuck's other writings on normative issues, have received a great deal of attention from philosophers, not just from economists.

Full justice cannot be done to Chuck's wide-ranging scholarly accomplishments here, so only brief mention is made of three other topics to which he has made significant contributions. With Donaldson, he wrote a number of important articles on the normative approach to inequality and poverty measurement. The first of them, "Measures of Relative Equality and Their Meaning in Terms of Social Welfare" (Journal of Economic Theory, 1978), opened up new paths of investigation that were, by and large, neglected until the time it appeared.

Chuck also wrote a number of highly cited papers on social choice theory when it is assumed that some form of interpersonal utility comparison is possible. His article with Donaldson and Weymark, "Social Choice with Interpersonal Utility Comparisons: A Diagrammatic Introduction" (International Economic Review, 1984), has been used in textbooks to introduce this subject.

In his article with Schworm and Tony Venables, "Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Factor Price Equalization" (Review of Economic Studies, 1993), a long-standing issue in the international trade literature was finally resolved. While most previous publications on this topic confine themselves to the formulation of sufficient conditions for factor price equalization, this article provides a clear-cut answer to the question how far the search for progressively weaker sufficient conditions can go by providing sufficient conditions that are also necessary

Chuck played a major role in turning the U.B.C. Economics Department into one of the top 20 departments in the world. His unconditional support and encouragement to countless junior members of our community, whether or not they were his own colleagues or students, deserves recognition. With his sonorous voice and outgoing personality, Chuck had a commanding presence. Those that knew him well have had the pleasure and privilege of benefiting from his immense generosity and, most importantly, from his invaluable friendship.

Walter Bossert (Université de Montréal), John A. Weymark (Vanderbilt University)

David Donaldson

Admin — 2026-10-22T17:16:32Z

David Donaldson was born in Peterborough, Ontario on July 5, 1938 and passed away on
June 9, 2026 in Vancouver, just shy of his 88th birthday.

David Donaldson was born in Peterborough, Ontario on July 5, 1938 and passed away on June 9, 2026 in Vancouver, just shy of his 88th birthday.

David received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1960 and graduated from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in Economics in 1966. He spent his entire career at the University of British Columbia's Department of Economics, which he joined in 1964 and where he stayed until his retirement in 1998.

David's remarkable research accomplishments were recognized in 1995 with the Isaac Walton Killam Senior award. Starting in 2001, David was a CIREQ Associate Research Fellow at the Université de Montréal. He was invited to deliver the Arrow Lecture at the 2008 Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare.

David was the recipient of U.B.C. teaching awards in 1992 and 1996 in recognition of his outstanding teaching. He was well-loved by his students and served as a role model for generations of Ph.D. students. David was renowned for speaking about "these little guys" whiletwisting the curls in his hair when illustrating economic principles. On four occasions, David taught in U.B.C.'s Arts I programme, which is an interdisciplinary great books course for first- year undergraduates. One of his students in Arts I was his future co-author John Weymark, who credits David for his decision to become an economist and his interest in social choice theory. Another co-author, Krishna Pendakur, was also inspired to be an economist after having had
David as an undergraduate teacher.

David is best known for his research on social choice theory, welfare economics, normative measures of inequality and poverty, and population ethics. He wrote over 100 articles and co-authored one monograph. That the U.B.C. Economics Department was among the world leaders in social choice theory (and normative economics in general) for quite some time can, to a large extent, be attributed to his outstanding research contributions.

David's publications reflect his life-long passion for justice, equity, and the social good, and the normative arguments that support their achievement. Having had Ken Arrow as a teacher and thesis supervisor at Stanford helped direct him towards social choice theory and welfare economics as the subjects that would be the focus of his research. Amartya Sen's Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Holden–Day, 1970) and John Rawls' "Justice as Fairness" (Journal of Philosophy, 1957) and A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, 1971) cemented this interest.

It is impossible in a few paragraphs to do full justice to the breadth and depth of David's research accomplishments. Below are selective remarks on what can be considered as being some of his most impactful publications.

David first gained an international reputation for his work with Charles Blackorby on normatively significant measures of inequality and poverty. Their ''Measures of Relative Equality and Their Meaning in Terms of Social Welfare" (Journal of Economic Theory, 1978), ''A Theoretical Treatment of Absolute Indices of Inequality'' (International Economic Review, 1980), and "Ethical Indices for the Measurement of Poverty" (Econometrica, 1980) have been particularly influential. ''A Single-Parameter Generalization of the Gini Indices of Inequality'' (Journal of Economic Theory, 1980), written with Weymark, introduced and axiomatically characterized a one-parameter class of inequality indices that include the Gini index as a special case. The parameter captures the degree to which inequality aversion is taken into account. This class of indices has been employed in many empirical studies of inequality.

Beginning with "Utility vs. Equity: Some Plausible Quasi-Orderings" (Journal of Public Economics, 1977), written with Blackorby, David published a number of important articles about collective decision-making when interpersonal comparisons of well-being are included in the toolbox that is at the disposal of a public decision maker. In collaboration with Blackorby and Weymark, in ''Social Choice with Interpersonal Utility Comparisons: A Diagrammatic Introduction'' (International Economic Review, 1984), David developed a diagrammatic representation of the possibilities that emerge in social choice problems when various forms of interpersonal comparisons of well-being are possible. This article serves as the basis of a number of textbook treatments of this problem.

David's path-breaking article with Blackorby, ''Social Criteria for Evaluating Population Change'' (Journal of Public Economics, 1984), introduced a novel form of utilitarianism––critical-level level utilitarianism. Critical-level utilitarianism recommends against bringing individuals into existence if their lifetime well-beings are expected to be below a threshold that represents a minimally acceptable quality of life––the critical level. This article provided the foundation for an extensive body of research on population ethics that remains active to the present time. It also served as the starting point of a long-term project on population ethics (with Blackorby and later also with Walter Bossert) that culminated in their monograph, Population Issues in Social Choice Theory, Welfare Economics, and Ethics (Cambridge University Press,2005). David was a committed utilitarian, and his 2002 survey article ''Utilitarianism and the Theory of Justice'' with Blackorby and Bossert in the Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, Volume 1 (North-Holland) is a widely consulted reference.

Less well known are David's forays into the ethics of animal exploitation. David was once selected to serve as a representative on U.B.C.'s animal care committee. The remit of this committee was to ensure that the treatment of animals used in research conforms to appropriate ethical principles. One of the issues the committee confronted focused on the following question: If harmful experimental treatments are to be administered more than once, should the same laboratory animals be used repeatedly, or is it ethically preferable to use different animals in each instance? Because these animals are brought into existence solely for the purpose of being used in research, this is a genuine variable-population issue. Together with Blackorby (who served on the same committee at a different time), David came up with a clear answer: If the harm done by each experiment is sufficiently large (which was, by all reasonable measures, the case at the time), it is preferable that the same animals be used repeatedly. This is a consequence of using the critical-level utilitarian criterion that they had developed. A somewhat similar analysis can be applied to animals that are used for human food consumption. In addition to providing recommendations that were well-received within the context of their committee responsibilities, the two of them published their findings in an important article, ''Pigs and Guinea Pigs: A Note on the Ethics of Animal Exploitation'' (Economic Journal, 1992). These contributions to animal ethics are a good example of the practical relevance of much of David's work.

David had an enormous and lasting impact on his colleagues, students, co-authors, and the wider community of scholars interested in social choice theory and welfare economics. From the beginning of his career, David's interests went well beyond the traditional confines of economics. Much of his work was of significant relevance for political and moral philosophers (including both theoretical and applied ethicists). The members of these communities enthusiastically welcomed him in their midst. A commitment to social justice was an important part of David's life. His student days at Stanford coincided with the heyday of the civil rights movement, which David strongly endorsed. He was also an active supporter of the peace movement and participated in the Vancouver peace walk for as long as his health permitted him to do so. He also joined numerous initiatives and events to combat climate change. His compassionate positions on social issues were guided by the strong and highly compelling ethical principles he adhered to.

Music was a great passion throughout David's life. He started playing the piano, the organ, and several brass instruments in his childhood. Later, he developed an interest in folk music and added the guitar to his repertoire. After the onset of rheumatism in the early 1980s, David was no longer able to play most of these instruments, so he instead focused on wind instruments––the recorder and various types of whistles in particular. In addition to playing privately and performing in public both as an instrumentalist and in a church choir, David enjoyed composing music. He issued two CDs that he recorded, edited, and mastered himself before having them reproduced.

David was an amazing human being who was renowned for his kindness and compassion. He was also the best friend one could wish for. David will be missed by his loved ones, his friends, and a multitude of members of the academic community. The world became a better place because we were fortunate to have him with us for almost nine decades.

Walter Bossert (Université de Montréal), John A. Weymark (Vanderbilt University)

Best Young Scholar Paper Awards 2026

Admin — 2026-06-29T19:09:09Z

Best Young Scholar Paper Awards 2026

The Society for Social Choice and Welfare has decided put in the spotline the researchs made by young scholars. During the 2026 SSCW meeting in Tokyo, the jury, composed by the organisers of the conference, has awarded six prizes to :

Angelina Iudina (Higher School of Economics) "Extensions of the uncovered-set-related rules for stable choice based on non-transitive preferences: axiomatic analysis"

Gustav Alexandrie (University of Zurich) "Probability Aggregation Under Equal Expected Accuracy"

John Mori (University of Chicago) "Individual Sovereignty and Other-Regarding Preferences"

Karri Heikkinen (University College London) "Complaints, Gratitude, and the Procreation Asymmetry"

Pierre Bardier (Paris School of Economics and ENS) "Efficiency-conditional priority to the worst-off"

Ryo Tsukamoto (Boston College) "Strategyproof Voluntary Pairwise Exchange with Dichotomous Preferences"

Register

Webmaster — 2026-03-02T17:22:43Z

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Can being in prison entail more freedom ?

Admin — 2026-01-07T11:22:02Z

We are happy to share with you the most recent research manuscript written by our friend and colleague Remzi Sanver.

Please click on the attached document to read the paper.

2026 PRIZE: FLORIAN BRANDL AND MENGLING LI

Admin — 2026-01-05T15:03:28Z

Florian Brandl and Mengling Li receive the thirteenth social choice and welfare prize

A jury composed of Youngsub Chun (President-Elect of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare), Marc Fleurbaey (Past President of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare), Bettina Klaus (President of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare), Souvik Roy (Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata) and Piotr Skowron (University of Warsaw) has chosen to award the twelfth Social Choice and Welfare Prize jointly to Florian Brandl (University of Bonn) and Mengling Li (School of Economics & the Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University).

The purpose of the Social Choice and Welfare Prize is to honour young scholars of excellent accomplishment in the area of social choice theory and welfare economics. The laureate should be 40 years or less as of January of the year when the International Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare is scheduled to take place. During this meeting, the prize winner(s) will give a plenary lecture.

Each recipient will receive an engraved bronze medal from la Monnaie de Paris.

Elections : September 22nd till September 29th 2025

Admin — 2026-01-05T13:58:23Z

The Society will renew this September a third of its 24 council members and designate its next President Elect. In both cases, the applicable election procedure is Approval Voting.

The elections will be conducted online via the Balotilo application from September 22nd till September the 29th 2025 (midnight, everywhere on earth). Each registered member of the Society will receive an invitation to participate by email from the balitilo platform (one mail for the council, one mailfor the next president elect). New members who join the society on or before Friday the 26th of September could be added to the list of voters and participate to the election.

The candidate for the next President elect is:

Youngsub CHUN

Seoul National University

The candidates for the Council are (in alphabetic order):

Geir ASHEIM	University of Oslo
Carlos ALOS FERRER	Lancaster University
Antoinette BAUJARD	Université Jean Monnet
Anna BOGOMOLNAIA	CNRS & University of Glasgow
Florian BRANDL	University of Bonn
Felix BRANDT	Technical University of Munich
Wonki Jo CHO	Korea University
Laura DOVAL	Columbia Business School
Maya EDEN	University of Zurich
Ulle ENDRISS	University of Amsterdam
Davide GROSSI	University of Groningen
Eun Jeong HEO	University of Seoul
Wesley HOLLIDAY	University of California, Berkeley
Bung-Ghi JU	Seoul National University
Jan MALY	Vienna University of Economics and Business
Nicholas MATTEI	Tulane University
Debasis MISHRA	Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi
Bernardo MORENO	Universidad de Malaga
Jacob NEBEL	Princeton University
Szilvia PAPAI	Concordia University
Paolo PIACQUADO	University of Oslo
Souvik ROY	Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata
Piotr SKOWRON	University of Warsaw
Zoi TERZOPOULOU	CNRS & Université Jean Monnet
Rene VAN DEN BRINK	VU Amsterdam
Rodrigo VELEZ	University of Texas at San Antonio
Alex WESTKAMP	University of Cologne
Dimitrios XEFTERIS	University of Cyprus
Sonal YADAV	University of Liverpool

Council and Executive Committee

Webmaster — 2025-10-07T16:15:32Z

Executive Committee

Past President: Bettina Klaus (2026-2027)
President: Youngsub Chun (2026-2027)
President Elect: The elections will take place in Automn 2027
Secretary-treasurer: Vincent Merlin (2026-2029)

Council members

Elected Members	Past Presidents
Antoinette Baujard (2024-2029)	Salvador Barbera
Dolors Berga (2022-2027)	Claude D'Aspremont
Anna Bogomolnaia (2024-2029)	Bhaskar Dutta
Florian Brandl (2024-2029)	Hervé Moulin
Felix Brandt (2024-2029)	Prasanta Pattanaik
Susumu Cato (2022-2027)	Hans Peters
Vincent Conitzer (2022-2027)	Maurice Salles
Franz Dietrich (2020-2025)	Amartya Sen
Lars Ehlers (2020-2025)	Arunava Sen
Edith Elkind (2020-2025)	William Thomson
Ulle Endriss (2024-2029)	John Weymark
Jean François Laslier (2020-2025)
François Maniquet (2022-2027)
Debasis Mishra (2024-2029)
Bernardo Moreno (2020-2025)
Antonio Nicolo (2020-2025)
Marina Nunez (2020-2025)
Matias Nunez (2022-2027)
Szilvia Papai (2024-2029)
Domink Peters (2022-2027)
Ariel Procaccia (2022-2027)
Clemens Puppe (2022-2027)
Piotr Skowron (2024-2029)
Zoi Terzopoulou (2024-2029)
Remzi Sanver (2020-2025)
Bill Zwicker (2022-2027)

2025 Election Results

Admin — 2025-10-07T16:11:32Z

2025 Election Results

The elections for the renewal of 8 members of the Council and the new President Elect were held between the 22nd and the 29th of September 2025 via Balotilo. There were 209 registered voters. 60% of the members participated to the elections.

President Elect

Youngsub CHUN has been elected the new President Elect. You can consult the results on the attached document below.

Council

Antoinette BAUJARD, Anna BOGOMOLNAIA, Florian BRANDL, Felix BRANDT, Ulle ENDRISS, Debasis MISHRA, Szilvia PAPAI, Piotr SKOWRON, Zoi TERZOPOULOU are elected. The Executive Comittee has decided to invite to the council both candidates that were tied for the 8th position. You can consult the results on the attached document below.

The First Meeting

Admin — 2025-06-02T17:22:50Z

The First Meeting

On the behalf of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare, Maurice Salles organized the first meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare in Caen in June 1992. Hervé Moulin had the heavy duty to chair the programme committee. Kenneth Arrow (Nobel 1972), Amartya Sen (Nobel 1998) and John Harsanyi (Nobel 1994) participated in this first meeting, as well as their successors as presidents of the Society, Claude d'Aspremont, Salvador Barberà, Bhaskar Dutta, Marc Fleurbaey, Hervé Moulin, Prasanta Pattanaik, Hans Peters, John E. Roemer, Arunava Sen, Kotaro Suzumura, William Thomson and John Weymark. Two of the 2007 Nobel prize laureates, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson were also present to the meeting.

Click here to see the programme of the first meeting

Click here to see the list of participants

Click here to see the portfolio