Abstract :
A seminal paper by May [Econometrica 20 (1952) 680] characterizes the majority rule in terms of anonymity, neutrality, and positive responsiveness. Whereas the former two axioms are natural and fairly weak, the positive responsiveness axiom is usually criticized for being too strong. In this note, we provide an alternative characterization of the majority rule in terms of neutrality, Pareto optimality, and a new axiom that we call reducibility to subsocieties.
