The launching of `social choice and welfare' and the creation of the `Society for Social Choice and Welfare' (Q2500728)

The author discusses the appearance of the econometric discipline previously (in the 1970s) called ``Social choice theory and voting'' but soon renamed ``Social choice and welfare'' and he refers to \textit{P. K. Pattanaik} and \textit{M. Salles}' book thus entitled (Amsterdam, North Holland, 1983; Zbl 0512.00031). He does not describe the essence of either the discipline or the book but mentions in passing that Condorcet and Borda studied voting procedures from a mathematical standpoint. The author is Secretary of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare (established 1992) whose prehistory consisted in launching a periodical of the same name.