242 research outputs found

    The Division Problem under Constraints

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    The work of G. Bergantiños is partially supported by research grants ECO2008-03484-C02-01 and ECO2011-23460 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER. J. Massó acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2011-0075) and through grant ECO2008-0475-FEDER (Grupo Consolidado-C), and from the Generalitat de Catalunya, through the prize "ICREA Academia" for excellence in research and grant SGR2009-419. The work of A. Neme is partially supported by the Universidad Nacional de San Luis, through grant 319502, and by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), through grant PIP 112-200801-00655.The division problem under constraints consists of allocating a given amount of an homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a subset of agents with single-peaked preferences on an exogenously given interval of feasible allotments. We characterize axiomatically the family of extended uniform rules proposed to solve the division problem under constraints. Rules in this family extend the uniform rule used to solve the classical division problem without constraints. We show that the family of all extended uniform rules coincides with the set of rules satisfying efficiency, strategy-proofness, equal treatment of equals, bound monotonicity, consistency, and independence of irrelevant coalitions

    The division problem with maximal capacity constraints

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    We thank an anonymous referee whose comments and suggestions helped us to write a better paper. The work of G. Bergantiños is partially supported by research grant ECO2008-03484-C02-01 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER. Support for the research of J. Massó was received through the prize "ICREA AcadÚmia" for excellence in research, funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya. He also acknowledges the support of MOVE (where he is an affiliated researcher), of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (where he is an affiliated professor), and of the Government of Catalonia, through grant SGR2009-419. His work is also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through grants ECO2008-04756 (Grupo Consolidado-C) and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 (CDS2006-00016). The work of A. Neme is partially supported by the Universidad Nacional de San Luis through grant 319502 and by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) through grant PICT-02114.The division problem consists of allocating a given amount of an homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a group of agents with single-peaked preferences on the set of their potential shares. A rule proposes a vector of shares for each division problem. Most of the literature has implicitly assumed that all divisions are feasible. In this paper we consider the division problem when each agent has a maximal capacity due to an objective and verifiable feasibility constraint which imposes an upper bound on his share. Then each agent has a feasible interval of shares where his preferences are single-peaked. A rule has to propose to each agent a feasible share.We focus mainly on strategy-proof, efficient and consistent rules and provide alternative characterizations of the extension of the uniform rule that deals explicitly with agents' maximal capacity constraint

    Devolution and the New Zealand Resource Management Act

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    Many past and potential New Zealand reforms involve significant devolution, i.e. the transfer of authority to make decisions on behalf of society from a higher to a lower level of government. In particular the Resource Management Act (RMA), the health and education reforms, and decisions about the institutions for addressing Maori issues have led to significant devolution of authority. Employment policy and social welfare are areas where devolution is an important policy option. The role and function of local government also is inherently an issue of the appropriate level of devolution. Many of these reforms have now been in place for a number of years, so it is appropriate to review our experience of devolution, identify the successes, and attempt to address the problems that have arisen. Two papers address issues of when and how we should devolve authority from central to local government. This paper looks at devolution both from a general theoretical standpoint and from the perspective of the New Zealand Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), with residential land use as an illustration. Although the RMA is discussed throughout both papers, the framework developed applies to any area of policy for which devolution decisions are being considered. The second paper, Treasury Working Paper 98/7a, applies the framework to the optimal pattern of devolution for policies relating to kiwi protection.

    The Division problem under constraints

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    The division problem under constraints consists of allocating a given amount of an homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a subset of agents with single- peaked preferences on an exogenously given interval of feasible allotments. We char- acterize axiomatically the family of extended uniform rules proposed to solve the division problem under constraints. Rules in this family extend the uniform rule used to solve the classical division problem without constraints. We show that the fam- ily of all extended uniform rules coincides with the set of rules satisfying efficiency, strategy-proofness, equal treatment of equals, bound monotonicity, consistency, and independence of irrelevant coalitions

    Stability and Fairness in Models with a Multiple Membership

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    This article studies a model of coalition formation for the joint production (and finance) of public projects, in which agents may belong to multiple coalitions. We show that, if projects are divisible, there always exists a stable (secession-proof) structure, i.e., a structure in which no coalition would reject a proposed arrangement. When projects are indivisible, stable allocations may fail to exist and, for those cases, we resort to the least core in order to estimate the degree of instability. We also examine the compatibility of stability and fairness in metric environments with indivisible projects, where we also explore the performance of well-known solutions, such as the Shapley value and the nucleolus.Stability, Fairness, Membership, Coalition Formation

    How to Measure Living Standards and Productivity

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    This paper sets out a general algorithm for calculating true cost-of-living indices or true producer price indices when demand is not homothetic, i.e. when not all expenditure elasticities are equal to one. In principle, economic theory tells us how we should calculate a true cost-of-living index or KonĂŒs price index: first estimate the consumer's expenditure function (cost function) econometrically and then calculate the KonĂŒs price index directly from that. Unfortunately this is impossible in practice since real life consumer (producer) price indices contain hundreds of components, which means that there are many more parameters than observations. Index number theory has solved this problem, at least when demand is homothetic (all income elasticities equal to one). Superlative index numbers are second order approximations to any acceptable expenditure (cost) function. These index numbers require data only on prices and quantities over the time period or cross section under study. Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence that consumer demand is not homothetic (Engel's Law). The purpose of the present paper is to set out a general algorithm for the nonhomothetic case. The solution is to construct a chain index number using compensated, not actual, expenditure shares as weights. The compensated shares are the actual shares, adjusted for changes in real income. These adjustments are made via an econometric model, where only the responses of demand to income changes need to be estimated, not the responses to price changes. This makes the algorithm perfectly feasible in practice. The new algorithm can be applied (a) in time series, e.g. measuring changes over time in the cost of living; (b) in cross section, e.g. measuring differences in the cost of living and hence the standard of living across countries; and (c) to cost functions, which enables better measures of technical progress to be developed.consumer price index, KonĂŒs, cost of living, measurement of welfare change, Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, producer price index, homothetic, Productivity
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