A comprehensive survey of computational aspects of collective decisions for graduate students, researchers, and professionals in computer science and economics.
What are the methodologies for assessing and improving governmental policy in light of well-being? The Oxford Handbook of Well-Being and Public Policy provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary treatment of this topic. The contributors draw from welfare economics, moral philosophy, and psychology and are leading scholars in these fields. The Handbook includes thirty chapters divided into four Parts. Part I covers the full range of methodologies for evaluating governmental policy and assessing societal condition-including both the leading approaches in current use by policymakers and academics (such as GDP, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, inequality and poverty metrics, and the concept of the "social welfare function"), and emerging techniques. Part II focuses on the nature of well-being. What, most fundamentally, determines whether an individual life is better or worse for the person living it? Her happiness? Her preference-satisfaction? Her attainment of various "objective goods"? Part III addresses the measurement of well-being and the thorny topic of interpersonal comparisons. How can we construct a meaningful scale of individual welfare, which allows for comparisons of well-being levels and differences, both within one individual's life, and across lives? Finally, Part IV reviews the major challenges to designing governmental policy around individual well-being.
This collection of six papers provides a valuable source of material on the real-world problem of allocating objects among competing claimants. The examples given show how mathematics, particularly the axiomatic method, can be applied to give insight into complex social problems. Originally presented as an AMS Short Course, these papers could serve as a suitable text for courses touching on game theory, decision sciences, economics, or quantitative political science. Most of the material is accessible to the mathematically mature undergraduate with a background in advanced calculus and algebra. Each article surveys the recent literature and includes statements and sketches of proofs, as well as unsolved problems which should excite student curiosity. The articles analyze the question of fair allocation via six examples: the apportionment of political representation, the measurement of income inequality, the allocation of joint costs, the levying of taxes, the design of voting laws, and the framing of auction procedures. In each of these examples fairness has a somewhat different significance, but common axiomatic threads reveal broad underlying principles. Each of the topics is concerned with norms of comparative equity for evaluating allocations or with standards of procedures for effecting them; it is this focus on normative properties which suggests that a mathematical analysis is appropriate. Though game theory provides a useful tool in many of these allocation problems, the emphasis here is on standards rather than strategy and equity rather than rationality, an approach which more accurately mirrors real-world social problems.
Shows how mathematics, particularly the axiomatic method, can be applied to give insight into complex social problems. This collection provides material on the real-world problem of allocating objects among competing claimants. Each article surveys the literature and includes statements and sketches of proofs, as well as unsolved problems.
Auctions and fair division problems are situations in which commodities are to be allocated fairly and efficiently. While a variety of schemes exist for fairly allocating finely divisible homogeneous commodities, most schemes are not applicable to the problem of allocating indivisible items. This paper considers the problem of fairly allocation sets of indivisible objects. 'Dollars, ' a finely divisible, homogeneous, transferrable commodity, are used to evaluate individuals preferences and to transfer value among individuals. This introduction of dollars has several implications; the main result is that fair allocation problems may be viewed as two smaller problems. First auction the goods among the individuals and then divide the resulting revenue according to the chosen definition of fairness. Several existing fair allocation schemes are reviewed; examples illustrate some difficulties associated with their use. Kuhn's definitions of 'fairness' are presented and two extensions are considered for the case where individuals have different shares in the collection of goods.
Cutting a cake, dividing up the property in an estate, determining the borders in an international dispute - such problems of fair division are ubiquitous. Fair Division treats all these problems and many more through a rigorous analysis of a variety of procedures for allocating goods (or 'bads' like chores), or deciding who wins on what issues, when there are disputes. Starting with an analysis of the well-known cake-cutting procedure, 'I cut, you choose', the authors show how it has been adapted in a number of fields and then analyze fair-division procedures applicable to situations in which there are more than two parties, or there is more than one good to be divided. In particular they focus on procedures which provide 'envy-free' allocations, in which everybody thinks he or she has received the largest portion and hence does not envy anybody else. They also discuss the fairness of different auction and election procedures.
Many courts and state and local governments have turned to "fair share" plans to determine the equitable distribution of housing in a region according to such criteria as broadening the socioeconomic mix of communities and protecting the environment. This monograph examines the emerging fair share strategy, discusses its theoretical impact, and analyzes its track record to date. Specific examples and legislative alternatives are examined in detail.