Maximal Elements of Preferences on Compact Spaces from Optimization of One-Way Utilities

The search for maximal elements of preference relations has been recently related to the optimization of one-way utilities on compact topological spaces. In this paper, we deepen this study by referring to upper semicontinuous finite Richter–Peleg multi-utility representations of preorders. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of representations of this kind and then, under the assumption of near-completeness, we characterize the identification of all maximal elements by maximizing all functions in an appropriate representation under compactness.