Equality of Effort via Algorithmic Recourse

This paper proposes a method for measuring fairness through equality of effort by applying algorithmic recourse through minimal interventions. Equality of effort is a property that can be quantified at both the individual and the group level. It answers the counterfactual question: what is the minimal cost for a protected individual or the average minimal cost for a protected group of individuals to reverse the outcome computed by an automated system? Algorithmic recourse increases the flexibility and applicability of the notion of equal effort: it overcomes its previous limitations by reconciling multiple treatment variables, introducing feasibility and plausibility constraints, and integrating the actual relative costs of interventions. We extend the existing definition of equality of effort and present an algorithm for its assessment via algorithmic recourse. We validate our approach both on synthetic data and on the German credit dataset

A Moral Framework for Understanding of Fair ML through Economic Models of Equality of Opportunity

We map the recently proposed notions of algorithmic fairness to economic models of Equality of opportunity (EOP)---an extensively studied ideal of fairness in political philosophy. We formally show that through our conceptual mapping, many existing definition of algorithmic fairness, such as predictive value parity and equality of odds, can be interpreted as special cases of EOP. In this respect, our work serves as a unifying moral framework for understanding existing notions of algorithmic fairness. Most importantly, this framework allows us to explicitly spell out the moral assumptions underlying each notion of fairness, and interpret recent fairness impossibility results in a new light. Last but not least and inspired by luck egalitarian models of EOP, we propose a new family of measures for algorithmic fairness. We illustrate our proposal empirically and show that employing a measure of algorithmic (un)fairness when its underlying moral assumptions are not satisfied, can have devastating consequences for the disadvantaged group's welfare

Gender Discriminatory Taxes, Fairness Perception, and Labor Supply

In this paper, we examine the gender specific impact of discriminatory taxation on fairness perception and individual labor supply decisions. Using the controlled environment of an experimental laboratory, we manipulate both distributional as well as procedural justice of taxation between subjects. We violate distributional fairness through the random application of tax rates, while procedural justice is broken by levying discriminatory tax rates based on taxpayer gender. For both inequality in outcome as well as discrimination, we find strong differences in reactions between male and female participants. Male participants perceived gender discriminatory taxation as unfair in and of itself. Female participants perceived random taxation as well as gender discriminatory taxation to be unfair, as long as they ended up with the higher tax rate. The perceived fairness strongly drove (did not affect) male (female) participants’ labor supply. Taken both subgroups together, while mere outcome inequality did not influence labor supply decisions significantly, we find evidence of a negative effect of gender-based discrimination on labor supply

A Short-term Intervention for Long-term Fairness in the Labor Market

The persistence of racial inequality in the U.S. labor market against a general backdrop of formal equality of opportunity is a troubling phenomenon that has significant ramifications on the design of hiring policies. In this paper, we show that current group disparate outcomes may be immovable even when hiring decisions are bound by an input-output notion of "individual fairness." Instead, we construct a dynamic reputational model of the labor market that illustrates the reinforcing nature of asymmetric outcomes resulting from groups' divergent accesses to resources and as a result, investment choices. To address these disparities, we adopt a dual labor market composed of a Temporary Labor Market (TLM), in which firms' hiring strategies are constrained to ensure statistical parity of workers granted entry into the pipeline, and a Permanent Labor Market (PLM), in which firms hire top performers as desired. Individual worker reputations produce externalities for their group; the corresponding feedback loop raises the collective reputation of the initially disadvantaged group via a TLM fairness intervention that need not be permanent. We show that such a restriction on hiring practices induces an equilibrium that, under particular market conditions, Pareto-dominates those arising from strategies that statistically discriminate or employ a "group-blind" criterion. The enduring nature of equilibria that are both inequitable and Pareto suboptimal suggests that fairness interventions beyond procedural checks of hiring decisions will be of critical importance in a world where machines play a greater role in the employment process.Comment: 10 page

Equality, Liberty, and a Fair Income Tax

This Article summarizes various formal theories of justice and of income taxation. It explores the nature of the American perception of justice. First, it provides an overview of the two political concepts that have shaped our country—liberty and equality. It then summarizes the American tradition, labeled moral economic individualism, that articulates the meanings of liberty and equality that resonate most strongly within the national psyche. It surveys empirical evidence of American beliefs about distributive justice and taxation. The Article concludes that American beliefs in liberty and equality support a mildly progressive hybrid income-consumption tax, rather than a pure income tax or a flat-rate consumption tax. Such a tax acknowledges the pluralistic meanings of liberty and equality under the unifying umbrella of a fluid and flexible conception of fair tax

Democratic Hopes in the Polycentric City

The polycentric model of municipal governance suggests that multiple jurisdictions may approximate an efficient market for local public services: citizens move to jurisdictions offering services they value at tax rates they are willing and able to pay. The model is appealing to political theorists for its emphasis on free association and responsive governance, but problematic insofar as institutions prescribed by the model permit exclusionary practices and objectionable inequalities. I argue for a revised conception of polycentricity: efficient spatial patterns of boundaries and services are acceptable only if they are consistent with (inter alia) fair opportunities for both mobility and loyalty to place. This suggests a vision of the polycentric city in which fairness and contestation are as important as freedom and efficiency

Creating Fair Models of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Guidelines for the management of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) recommend the use of risk stratification models to identify patients most likely to benefit from cholesterol-lowering and other therapies. These models have differential performance across race and gender groups with inconsistent behavior across studies, potentially resulting in an inequitable distribution of beneficial therapy. In this work, we leverage adversarial learning and a large observational cohort extracted from electronic health records (EHRs) to develop a "fair" ASCVD risk prediction model with reduced variability in error rates across groups. We empirically demonstrate that our approach is capable of aligning the distribution of risk predictions conditioned on the outcome across several groups simultaneously for models built from high-dimensional EHR data. We also discuss the relevance of these results in the context of the empirical trade-off between fairness and model performance

Fairness, Efficiency and Insider Trading: Deconstructing the Coin of the Realm in the Information Age

Whether and how the federal securities laws should restrict insider trading is one of the most hotly debated topics in the securities law literature. Paradoxically, both the theoretical analysis and the legal rules concerning insider trading remain extraordinarily vague and ill-formed. What is the special character of insider trading that leads to this apparently irresolvable puzzle? In this Article, I argue that there is, in fact, nothing special about insider trading that creates this dilemma, but rather there is something special about the nature of information itself. Accordingly, this theoretical dilemma is not limited to insider trading regulation, but rather pervades all areas of intellectual property law. In this Article, I situate insider trading regulation within the larger body of intellectual property law by discussing three potential allocations of the property right in valuable inside information. First, inside information could be treated as a public resource, meaning that a person in possession of inside information could not legally exploit that advantage for personal profit. Such a regime would forbid some or all insider trading by forcing the disclosure to the marketplace of inside information prior to trading. I argue that regulators should reject this alternative because, despite it\u27s proponents\u27 tendency to justify the rule in terms of fairness, this proposal is unlikely to foster fairness in any meaningful way. Alternatively, the property right in valuable inside information could belong to issuers, as the producers of such information. I argue that regulators should reject this alternative because, despite its proponents? tendency to frame their arguments in terms of promoting informational efficiency, a legal regime treating inside information as the property of the issuer is unlikely to further that goal. In fact, such proposals assume an affirmative answer to a question that is fiercely debated in other areas of intellectual property law: does creating a property right in information producers incentivize additional production to the extent necessary to offset the social costs of excluding others from use of the information? Finally, the property right in valuable inside information could reside with outsider traders (traders who possess inside information, but are neither insiders nor constructive insiders of the issuer). I argue that regulators should pursue this alternative because, although there is no need to encourage issuers to create valuable inside information, the need to encourage the dissemination of such information to the marketplace has been recognized for many years. Accordingly, I propose in this Article a system of federal securities regulation that would permit trading by corporate outsiders who did not receive their information in a tip from an insider or constructive insider. Such a system, I argue, provides the hope of filling in the gaps left by the current disclose or abstain system, by encouraging the reflection of material information in stock market price without disclosure of the actual inside information. At the same time, this proposal avoids the perverse incentives and negative impacts on market efficiency attendant in a system that permits insider trading by corporate employees