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I have multiples lists which are ordered. How do I generate a final list with all elements in all lists ranked by their cumulative rank? I.e. the Final column here:

Global ranking of multiple ranked lists

I can't obtain the data with the fruits as a column and other columns with the fruit's numeric ranks. I.e., I can't do:

$\begin{array}{c|cc} Fruits&Alice&Bob&...\\ \hline Apple&1&1&...\\ Orange&2&0&...\\ ...&...&...&... \end{array}$

Nick Stauner
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Dot
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    Not sure to understand why you can't. Is that a question on how to do a pivot table in excel ? The problem of creating a rank is interesting though, have a look at Voting theory and Arrow's impossibility theorem – Scratch Mar 06 '14 at 11:21
  • @Scratch I meant I won't be able to obtain the data like in the second table. I don't have any experience using pivot table, can you point me to an example which will have similar results like in the first table?

    Thanks for Arrow's impossibility theorem. I came across it earlier, but wasn't sure it would help.. I'll check it out

     – Dot Mar 07 '14 at 07:39

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This is not so much a problem of statistics as it is a problem in what is called social choice. A short introduction to some of the basic results can be found here.

In general, there does not exist one "optimal" ranking. You have to specify what exactly you want your ranking to satisfy for you to be able to choose one optimally.

abaumann
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