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Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Social Sciences Seminar

Wednesday, April 22, 2020
12:00pm to 1:00pm
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Online Event
Guarantees in Fair Division: General or Monotone Preferences
Hervé Moulin, Professor of Economics, University of Glasgow,

Abstract: A basic test of fairness when we divide a "manna" Ω of private items between agents is the lowest welfare the rule guarantees to each agent, irrespective of others' preferences. Two familiar examples are: the equal Split Guarantee (the utility of 1/nΩ) when the manna is divisible and preferences are convex; and 1/n-th of the utility of a heterogenous non atomic "cake", if utilities are additive. The minMax utility of an agent is that of her best share in the worst possible n-partition of Ω. It is weakly below her Maxmin utility, that of her worst share in the best possible n-partition. The Maxmin guarantee is not feasible, even with two agents, if non convex preferences are allowed. The minMax guarantee is feasible in the very general class of problems where Ω is non atomic and utilities are continuous, but not necessarily additive or monotonic. The proof uses advanced algebraic topology techniques. And the minMax guarantee is implemented by the n-person version of Divide and Choose due to Kuhn (1967). When utilities are co-monotone (a larger part of the manna is weakly better for everyone, or weakly worse for everyone) better guarantees than minMax are feasible. In our Bid & Choose rules, agents bid the smallest size (according to some benchmark measure of Ω) of a share they find acceptable, and the lowest bidder picks such a share. The resulting guarantee is between the minMax and Maxmin utilities.

Written with Anna Bogomolnaia and Richard Stong.

How to view the seminar:
Sign up for a free twitch.tv account, and tune in on Wednesdays at 12 PM PST on twitch.tv/caltechecontheory. You will be able to ask questions on the Twitch chat.

For more information, please contact Letty Diaz by phone at 626-395-1255 or by email at [email protected].