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This paper simplifies and extends the literature on habit‐forming consumption. When addictive and nonaddictive goods are consumed, complements may become substitutes and normal nonaddictive goods may become inferior. Alternatively, when all goods are equally addictive, consumers favor goods with stable prices. Implications for product promotion and public policy are discussed.

During the twentieth century mathematics has expanded at an unprecedented rate. This expansion has been accompanied by the increased application of mathematics to science. At a time when pure mathematics has been placing more and more emphasis on abstraction and the analysis of broad concepts there has been a corresponding proliferation of practical applications. This seems to have resulted from the fact that the sciences, too, have become more concerned with the discernment of general patterns in the study of nature. This search for simplifying ideas has increased the demand for ever more abstract tools of analysis.

This paper is devoted to the topic of how mathematics might be more efficiently used in educational administration. The position taken here is that mathematics is a branch of philosophy whose subject matter is a set of abstract entities and identified operational rules. It is a vocabulary of symbols that can be used to label objects and, more importantly, a set of grammatical rules for using the vocabulary. The paper begins with a review of some recent developments reported in the social science literature on the uses of mathematics in political science, sociology and economics, and ends with some illustrations of how these developments could lead to similar applications in both the practice and theory domains of educational administration.

Economists usually try to avoid making moral judgements, at least in their professional capacity. Positive economics is seen as a way of analysing economic problems, in as scientific a manner as is possible in human sciences. Economists are often reluctant to be prescriptive, most seeing their task as presenting information on the various options, but leaving the final choice, to the political decision taker. The view of many economists is that politicians can be held responsible for the morality of their actions when making decisions on economic matters, unlike unelected economic advisors, and therefore the latter should limit their role.

Interest in developing institutional explanations of political and economic behavior has blossomed among social scientists since the early 1980s. Three intellectual perspectives are now prevalent: rational choice theory, historical institutionalism and a new school of organizational analysis. This paper summarizes, compares and contrasts these views and suggests ways in which cross‐fertilization may be achieved. Particular attention is paid to how the insights of organizational analysis and historical institutionalism can be blended to provide fruitful avenues of research and theorizing, especially with regard to the production, adoption, and mobilization of ideas by decision makers.

To follow the modern movement of using “positive feedback” to explain companies' behaviour with special focus on historical accidents.

To contribute to the emergence of new complexity theory as applied to management and prove that historical accidents matter, combining and bringing together literature sources.

The concept of unique equilibrium has been seriously disputed – the selection process is shown, as is the path dependent process using probability theory.

A location theory as case study is outlined – great for those fond of unique equilibrium.

To show another theory, which is dynamic, non‐linear, and complex as reality; to apply it to management underlying at the same time the role of historical accidents (random process).

Looks at Arrow’s early background in New York and his subsequent development in the field of econometrics and mathematical economics. Covers his work in depth and his achievements in the school of thought of economics, adding that the modern school of thought is complementary to the classical school.

This paper aims at examining the possibility of constructing an Arrow‐social welfare function (SWF) in an Islamic community, that is abide by the Islamic tradition (i.e. the Shari'ah), where the domain of the individuals is defined in the context of Islamic framework. This domain is defined by the Shari'ah, where part of that domain is constrained, such that those actions that lie in the wajib (i.e. obligatory) or haram (i.e. prohibited), where the individual has no choice, must be thoroughly explored with respect to such a welfare function to consistency with the Shari'ah. Individual choice functions only within that segment of the domain that Islamic law leaves to the individual; the individual makes choices concerning actions in which they will not lose any praise or reward if they do or do not act one way or another. My concern in this regard will be the Mubah (i.e. permissible) range of the individual domain. In the process of examining the possibility of constructing an Arrow form (SWF) in an Islamic community, I have added a new Axiom to those suggested by Arrow (1951, pp.22–31). Kenneth J. Arrow, in his book Social Choice and Individuals Values (1951), has argued that five requirements of ‘fairness’ must characterize an acceptable social welfare function. He finds that these are inconsistent with each other. In fact, no welfare function exists that will satisfy all of those conditions simultaneously. As laid out by Arrow, these five conditions are, respectively: (1) universal domain; (2) positive association of individuals' values; (3) independence of irrelevant alternatives; (4) citizens' sovereignty; (5) nondictatorship. These conditions, characterized by Arrow as “seemingly innocuous” together rule out the possibility of deriving a complete and consistent (SWF) (Luce and Raiffa, 1957, p.328). The new axiom which I will refer to as Islamically imposed axiom such that, in the process of formulating an Arrow form social welfare function, it is important to be consistent with the Shari'ah. The Islamically imposed condition will thus guarantee the consistency with the Shari'ah in the process of formulating a social welfare function. This axiom implies that to maintain consistency the following must hold: When ti, (which refers to actions that individuals must do) is an element of the choice set (xi, ti), ti will always be chosen over xi (which refers to the feasible set of alternatives that individuals can choose from), and when tio is an element of the choice set (which refers to actions that individuals must not do), it will never be chosen. I came to the conclusion that when the choice set contains alternatives that the individual must do (wajib) or must not do (haram), the former will be chosen and the latter will never be chosen. Thus, for the general case, Arrow's negative results follow. If these elements are not in the choice set (i.e. all elements in the choice set belongs to Mubah activities), then Arrow's results follow in a straightforward fashion.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it evaluates the impossibility proposition, called the “Arrow impossibility theorem” (AIT), which is widely attributed to Arrow’s social choice theory. This theorem denies the possibility of arriving at any collective majority resolution in any group voting system if the social choice function must satisfy “certain natural conditions”. Second, it intends to show the reasons behind the proliferation of this impossibility impression.

Theoretical and philosophical.

Arrow’s mathematical model does not seem to suggest or support his impossibility thesis. He has considered only one voting outcome, well known by the phrase “the Condorcet paradox”. However, other voting results are equally likely from his model, which might suggest unambiguous majority choice. This logical dilemma has been created by Arrow’s excessive dependence on the language of mathematics and symbolic logic.

The languages of mathematics and symbolic logic – numbers, letters and signs – have definite advantages in scientific argumentation and reasoning. These numbers and letters being invented however do not have any behavioural characteristics, which suggests that conclusions drawn from the model merely reflect the author’s opinions. The AIT is a good example of this logical dilemma.

The modern social choice theory, which is founded on the AIT, seems to be an academic assault to the system of democratic governance that is dominating current global village. By highlighting weaknesses in the AIT, this paper attempts to discredit this intellectual omission.

The paper offers a counter example to show that the impossibility of social choice is not necessarily implied by the Arrow’s model. Second, it uses Locke’s theory of human understanding to explain why the concerned social scientists are missing this point. This approach is probably entirely novel in this area of research.

In 1951, Kenneth Arrow proved that it is not possible to have a group decision-making procedure that satisfies reasonable requirements like fairness. From the theoretical viewpoint, this is a great result – well-deserving the Nobel Prize that was awarded to Professor Arrow. However, from the practical viewpoint, the question remains – so how should we make group decisions? A usual way to solve this problem is to provide some reasonable heuristic ideas, but the problem is that different seemingly reasonable idea often lead to different group decision – this is known, e.g. for different voting schemes.

In this paper we analyze this problem from the viewpoint of decision theory, the basic theory underlying all our activities – including economic ones.

We show how from the first-principles decision theory, we can extract explicit recommendations for group decision making.

Most of the resulting recommendations have been proposed earlier. The main novelty of this paper is that it provides a unified coherent narrative that leads from the fundamental first principles to practical recommendations.