Why nice guys lose: impossibility theorems in social choice theory

In this talk we will survey some aspects of social choice theory: in particular, various impossibility theorems about voting systems and strategies. We begin with the famous Arrow's impossibility theorem -- proving the non-existence of a 'fair' voting system -- before moving on to later developments, such as the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem, which states that all 'reasonable' voting systems are subject to tactical voting.

Given time, we will study extensions of impossibility theorems to micro-economic situations, and common strategies in game theory given the non-existence of optimal solutions.