Local Strategy-Proofness and Dictatorship

Abstract: We investigate preference domains where every unanimous and locally strategy-proof social choice function (scf) satisfies dictatorship. We identify a condition on domains called connected with two distinct neighbours which is necessary for unanimous and locally strategy-proof scfs to satisfy dictatorship. Further, we show that this condition is sufficient within the class of domains where every unanimous and locally strategy-proof scf satisfies tops-onlyness. While a complete characterization remains open, we make significant progress by showing that on connected with two distinct neighbours domains, unanimity and strategy-proofness (a stronger requirement) guarantee dictatorship.