Uncovering the "will of the people": heterogeneity and polarization within electorates
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The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 to teach economic theory as a truth of industrial life, and was very much concerned with applying economics to business and industry, particularly agriculture. Between 1910 and 1967 it showed the growing influence of other social studies, such as sociology, history, and political science. Today it encompasses the majors of Agricultural Business (preparing for agricultural finance and management), Business Economics, and Economics (for advanced studies in business or economics or for careers in financing, management, insurance, etc).
History
The Department of Economic Science was founded in 1898 under the Division of Industrial Science (later College of Liberal Arts and Sciences); it became co-directed by the Division of Agriculture in 1919. In 1910 it became the Department of Economics and Political Science. In 1913 it became the Department of Applied Economics and Social Science; in 1924 it became the Department of Economics, History, and Sociology; in 1931 it became the Department of Economics and Sociology. In 1967 it became the Department of Economics, and in 2007 it became co-directed by the Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Business.
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1898–present
Historical Names
- Department of Economic Science (1898–1910)
- Department of Economics and Political Science (1910-1913)
- Department of Applied Economics and Social Science (1913–1924)
- Department of Economics, History and Sociology (1924–1931)
- Department of Economics and Sociology (1931–1967)
Related Units
- College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (parent college)
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (parent college)
- College of Business (parent college)
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Abstract
The present paper examines when, for any given preference profile or set of individual preference orders, is it possible to define a procedure independent or objective aggregate ranking of the alternatives, such that the aggregate ranking qualifies as the “will of the people”. It also investigates what message is being conveyed by the profile, when different procedures come up with different aggregate rankings. Specifically, the paper establishes a profile decomposition methodology that allows us to answer these two questions and tests this methodology on ballot data from the Cambridge City Council elections. Our method is easy to implement and admits any number of candidates. The empirical results based on the ballot data provides new hard evidence of increasing political polarization amongst a section of the US voters.