Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution

by Alan D. Taylor and Steven J. Brams

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521556449
• ISBN13: 9780521556446
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

on time, nice book

Voting systems are quirkier than we generally knew. Good insight into what works and what the problems are.

Something Worderful is Going to Happen

Steven Brams and Alan Taylor accomplish something quite interesting and worth paying attention to. They move concepts traditionally treated in policy debate and law with simple hit-or-miss human judgment and discretion into concrete analyzable mathematical processes. In the more than ten years that I've worked on the mathematics of child support, I have not yet been so convincing that such a transformation from subjective into objective is possible. Let the games continue!Roger F. Gay, Project Leader Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/index.html

A comprehensive resource, easily read

This was easily the book I referred to most in my Master's paper on fair division. It covers a lot of topics, including envy-free and equitable division, fair division by auctions, and fair division by elections. The authors devote a chapter to their favorite method, the so-called "combined procedure" that is equitable, envy-free, and Pareto-optimal for two players and would be invaluable to any divorce lawyer.For those accustomed to reading mathematics or economics, this book is readable. For the layperson, it might be a little bit too technical in spots. While it has many practical examples, it isn't really a fair division manual for the do-it-yourselfer. But it's as close as you're going to get, for now.