Fair division of indivisible items

This paper analyzes criteria of fair division of a set of indivisible items among people whose revealed preferences are limited to rankings of the items and for whom no side payments are allowed. The criteria include refinements of Pareto optimality and envy-freeness as well as dominance-freeness, e...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theory and decision 2003-09, Vol.55 (2), p.147-180
Main Authors: BRAMS, Steven J, EDELMAN, Paul H, FISHBURN, Peter C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggregate analysis
Applied sciences
Artificial intelligence
Computer science
control theory
systems
Conflict
Exact sciences and technology
Flows in networks. Combinatorial problems
Hypotheses
Mathematical models
Operational research and scientific management
Operational research. Management science
Organization theory
Organizational behavior
Pareto efficiency
Pareto optimum
Preferences
Probability
Speech and sound recognition and synthesis. Linguistics
Studies
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper analyzes criteria of fair division of a set of indivisible items among people whose revealed preferences are limited to rankings of the items and for whom no side payments are allowed. The criteria include refinements of Pareto optimality and envy-freeness as well as dominance-freeness, evenness of shares, and two criteria based on equally-spaced surrogate utilities, referred to as maxsum and equimax. Maxsum maximizes a measure of aggregate utility or welfare, whereas equimax lexicographically maximizes persons' utilities from smallest to largest. The paper analyzes conflicts among the criteria along with possibilities and pitfalls of achieving fair division in a variety of circumstances. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0040-5833
1573-7187
DOI:10.1023/B:THEO.0000024421.85722.0a