Freedom of choice in a social context: comparing game forms

In this paper, the set of outcomes of game forms is introduced as the relevant attribute for evaluating freedom of choice. These sets are defined as the cartesian product of every individual’s set of available options. It is argued that doing so is one way of taking into account social interactions when evaluating individual freedom. A set of axioms is introduced, each of which conveys some intuitions about how interactions affect freedom of choice, axioms by the mean of which two criteria, the Max and the MaxMin, are characterised for comparing game forms in terms of the freedom of choice they offer. These criteria are based, respectively, on the comparison of the best and the worst outcome the individual can reach in the game form.