Fair Allocation based on Diminishing Differences

Ranking alternatives is a natural way for humans to explain their preferences. It is being used in many settings, such as school choice, course allocations and residency matches. In some cases, several `items' are given to each participant. Without having any information on the underlying cardinal utilities, arguing about fairness of allocation requires extending the ordinal item ranking to ordinal bundle ranking. The most commonly used such extension is stochastic dominance (SD), where a bundle X is preferred over a bundle Y if its score is better according to all additive score functions. SD is a very conservative extension, by which few allocations are necessarily fair while many allocations are possibly fair. We propose to make a natural assumption on the underlying cardinal utilities of the players, namely that the difference between two items at the top is larger than the difference between two items at the bottom. This assumption implies a preference extension which we call diminishing differences (DD), where X is preferred over Y if its score is better according to all additive score functions satisfying the DD assumption. We give a full characterization of allocations that are necessarily-proportional or possibly-proportional according to this assumption. Based on this characterization, we present a polynomial-time algorithm for finding a necessarily-DD-proportional allocation if it exists. Using simulations, we show that with high probability, a necessarily-proportional allocation does not exist but a necessarily-DD-proportional allocation exists, and moreover, that allocation is proportional according to the underlying cardinal utilities. We also consider chore allocation under the analogous condition --- increasing-differences.Comment: Revised version, based on very helpful suggestions of JAIR referees. Gaps in some proofs were filled, more experiments were done, and mor

Breaking the Legend: Maxmin Fairness notion is no longer effective

In this paper we analytically propose an alternative approach to achieve better fairness in scheduling mechanisms which could provide better quality of service particularly for real time application. Our proposal oppose the allocation of the bandwidth which adopted by all previous scheduling mechanism. It rather adopt the opposition approach be proposing the notion of Maxmin-charge which fairly distribute the congestion. Furthermore, analytical proposition of novel mechanism named as Just Queueing is been demonstrated.Comment: 8 Page

ISSUES RELATED TO THE ACCOUNTING TREATMENT OF THE TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE ASSETS DEPRECIATION

The issue of accounting depreciation is an older concern of this study's authors on the incidence over the true and fair view of the earning and the net value of the non- current assets. Proceeding from the consideration that the present depreciation methods, acknowleged by the accounting standards and regulations are not sufficient to render the reality of the irreversible impairment of the fixed assets nor that of the material and immaterial investment recovery we performed a research on the indicators reported by 20 companies in Cluj county and we applied a questionnaire to each entity on the depreciation methods used, their incidence on the true and fair view and their proposals for the completion of the depreciation methods. The objective of the research is to identify the most appropriate depreciation methods, truthfully illustrating the effects of the irreversible impairment on the net asset and on the earning, to introduce the excluded assests in the cathegory of the non-current assets ( like property and plant, goodwill, intangible assets created with ones own strengths) and the enforcement of appropriate treatments to the revaluation differences and their own overhead investments. The International Accounting Standard IAS 16 - Property, plant and equipment refers to three depreciation methods: the straightline method, the diminishing balance method and the technical depreciation method (units of production method). In Romania only two of these methods are accepted: the straightline method, the diminishing balance method and the accelerated method was additionally instilled, which is used internationally in exceptional situations and not currently. The results of the research led us to the following conclusions: - for the depreciation of the machinery, facilities and technological equipments it is recommended to use the technical depreciation method or the units of production method;  taking into consideration the financial conception on the non-current assets the depreciation of all cathegories of tangible and intangible assets is recommended, the purpose being the gradual recovery of the investment in these assets and not the covering of the wear and tear or obsolescence; - the surplus value resulted from the revaluation of the tangible assets musn't be depreciated because it generates in fictional expenses; - the depreciation of the overhead assets musn't be acknowledged as an expense but it should be treated as a reduction in the income resulting from fixed assets;  the completion of the depreciation concept with its financial meaning, namely the process of recovering the investments in tangible and intangible assets; The application of the research results leads to correcting the image provided by financial reportings on the tangible and intangible assets contribution to the income, the depreciation's reflection in the expenses and the net value of these assets. The contribution of the authors consists in interceding to ensure the application of the research results by modifying and completing the national accounting rules in order to achieve accounting's consecrated objective: reproducing a true and fair view on the financial position and performances. These issues have not been addressed in other specialty studies in the country or abroad.irreversible depreciation, accounting depreciation, technical depreciation depreciation, provision for positive reevaluation diferences

NONPECUNIARY BENEFITS TO FARMING AND DECOUPLED PAYMENTS

The first part of this paper presents a simple labor supply and production model wherein farmers with diminishing marginal utility of income derive nonpecuniary benefits from farming. We use the model to show how lump-sum or decoupled government payments could have positive and substantial effects on the supply of agricultural products. The result is simple and intuitive: payments allow those who enjoy farming to continue farming while maintaining a reasonably high living standard. Without payments, a lower living standard leads to higher marginal utility of income, making higher off-farm wages more desirable than lower on-farm wages plus non-pecuniary benefits from farming. Farmers respond to a reduction in payments by shifting their labor off-farm or exiting farming. This effect on labor supply and production is potentially much larger than effects predicted by earlier theoretical models that rely on utility with declining absolute risk aversion. The second part of this paper estimates the hourly nonpecuniary benefits to farming, for farms where the operator or spouse works off-farm, by comparing returns to household labor on-farm and off-farm. Results indicate substantial nonpecuniary benefits to farming. The empirical findings support a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for lump-sum payments having a substantial influence on production via an income effect.Decoupled payments, government payments, nonpecuniary benefits, labor supply, trade, Agricultural and Food Policy,

"National Adversity: Managing Insurance and Protection"

This paper concerns self-insurance and self-protection that countries may implement at a national level in pursuit of their security. The distinctions self-insurance, self-protection, and market insurance were first made by Ehrlich and Becker (1972). Nevertheless, extension of their models to international security where market insurance for entire countries is usually unavailable is surprisingly sparse. We show that, in the absence of market insurance, self-insurance alone raises important new issues as to the definition of "fair pricing" and as to the relations between pricing, optimization, risk aversion, and inferiority that are significantly different from standard, conventional market analysis. We also discover a hitherto unrecognized tendency for misallocation between selfprotection and self- insurance when both are available and considered together. Because of external effects running from self- protection to self-insurance, governments trying to find the right balance face incentives that encourage extreme, self-inflicted moral hazard, to the detriment of self-protection. Moreover, rather innocuous assumptions concerning countries' preferences lead to pervasive goods inferiority for both insurance and protection. Consequently, unlike the conventional wisdom in the economic theory of alliances with its neat interior Nash-solutions, we show when "defense" or "security" is disaggregated into more realistic categories such as protection and insurance that instabilities and corner solutions will be the conventional standard. The resulting perverse incentives that we discover point to conflicts and other difficulties among agents trying to cooperate in their management insurance and protection must overcome. Moreover the analysis implies that the paradigm Olson-Zeckhauser model (1966) model for alliance allocative behavior was fundamentally insufficient for the problem it was designed to address.

Technological change, accident prevention and civil liability

The improvement of accident prevention technology in many fields of social life has spurred new challenges to the doctrinal tools of fault and strict based civil liability in the law of torts. Amid these challenges lies the identification of the proper scope of the respective criteria of liability in a changing factual environment, their suitability as doctrinal tools, as well as their actual application to concrete cases given the amount of information which would be needed to render adequate judgments. Precedents and old laws should be assessed with caution, taking into account the tacit cost-benefit analysis embedded in them, for they may or may not serve the interests of welfare maximization in an environment with constantly renewed accident prevention technology

On Robust Discursive Equality

This paper explores the idea of robust discursive equality on which respect-based conceptions of justificatory reciprocity often draw. I distinguish between formal and substantive discursive equality and argue that if justificatory reciprocity requires that people be accorded formally equal discursive standing, robust discursive equality should not be construed as requiring standing that is equal substantively, or in terms of its discursive purchase. Still, robust discursive equality is purchase sensitive: it does not obtain when discursive standing is impermissibly unequal in purchase. I then showcase different candidate conceptions of purchase justice, and draw conclusions about the substantive commitments of justificatory reciprocity

Islamic house financing:current models and a proposal from social perspective

Shelter is one of the basic needs for human beings. Its availability for the people is an Islamic imperative. In view of the appalling living conditions for a substantial proportion of population in most countries around the world, especially Muslim, Islamic banks have entered the field with varying schemes for house financing. In this infant industry, the effort is understandably guided by profit motive but a social dimension has to surface in course of time. Unfortunately, the models banks currently use for house financing remains under the juridical gaze, more so as the practice is not always found transparent. This paper looks at Islamic house financing models in a broader societal context. It evaluates the efficacy of the in practice financing structures and suggests a new approach. The proposed model is shown as superior to the existing ones. It meets the norms of equity, fair play and openness and does not presumably violate any other Islamic norm. Finally, the paper makes some policy suggestions to integrate Islamic house financing with broader social goals of an Islamic economy.Key words: Housing problem; basic needs, Conventional model, BBA in housing, the MMP model, Diminishing balances model; Constructive ownership; National planning

Commodity Trade Stabilization Through International Agreements

We introduce a simple and efficient procedure for the segmentation of rigidly moving objects, imaged under an affine camera model. For this purpose we revisit the theory of "linear combination of views" (LCV), proposed by Ullman and Basri [20], which states that the set of 2d views of an object undergoing 3d rigid transformations, is embedded in a low-dimensional linear subspace that is spanned by a small number of basis views. Our work shows, that one may use this theory for motion segmentation, and cluster the trajectories of 3d objects using only two 2d basis views. We therefore propose a practical motion segmentation method, built around LCV, that is very simple to implement and use, and in addition is very fast, meaning it is well suited for real-time SfM and tracking applications. We have experimented on real image sequences, where we show good segmentation results, comparable to the state-of-the-art in literature. If we also consider computational complexity, our proposed method is one of the best performers in combined speed and accuracy. © 2011. The copyright of this document resides with its authors