Journal Article An Impossibility Theorem for Fixed Preferences: A Dictatorial Bergson-Samuelson Welfare Function Get access Robert P. Parks Robert P. Parks Washington University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 43, Issue 3, October 1976, Pages 447–450, https://doi.org/10.2307/2297221 Published: 01 October 1976 Article history Received: 01 April 1975 Accepted: 01 December 1975 Published: 01 October 1976

We have attempted here to trace the implications, in terms of operational procedures, of some postulates about the "physical" nature of objects on one hand and individual choice behaviour on the other. We summarize the major result in very loose terms by asserting that if when choosing from among several objects which are characterized by "qualitative" or "ordinal" properties, an individual's choice obeys a transitivity law, then the choice is necessarily" dictated" by one characteristic a lone; that is, the underlying preference must be lexicographic in one of these ordinal properties. The reader must consult the text below for an elaboration on the meaning of the terms emphasized by quotation marks before the proper context of the result can be established.