Social preference function and policy prioritisation for Bangladesh: An experiment with analytical hierarchy process

The difficulty in assigning priority weights in the multiple objective optimisation exercise of the planning process often leads to arbitrariness in the determination of priority weights. However, Frish (1957) has demonstrated that despite Arrow's famous impossibility theorem, a social preference function can be numerically established by systematically interviewing the decision makers or responsible politicians. In the light of the above, this paper attempts to achieve two goals: (a) that it is, indeed, possible to find intuitively plausible numerical priority weights and (b) the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) can be used to translate the interview responses into cardinal ordering. The close correspondence between the investment allocations of the Planning Commission and those derived from the priority weights of our exercise with AHP implies that AHP can be used to by-pass detailed planning exercises and thereby make planning more flexible.