The Equivalence of Three Social Decision Functions

This paper demonstrates that three of the basic approaches to the solution of the social choice problem are in fact equivalent to one another. All will yield the same social decision functions -- a winning set of permutations of the actions. The Combinatorial Optimization criterion of Blin and Whinston is shown to be monotonically related to the Kemeny function criterion proposed by Levenglick. The set covering formulation for the l_1 norm case devised by Merchant and Rao is also shown to be equivalent to the other two. The geometrical aspect of the problem is also discussed and an example is provided

Outline of a Decision Support System for Area-Wide Water Quality Planning

This working paper outlines requirements for an implementation of a computerized decision support system which addresses the technical aspects of area-wide water quality planning. The framework for this work is in the context of the environmental law adopted in the United States during 1972. This law, known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, specifies various requirements that both municipal and industrial discharges must eventually conform. By 1977 municipal waste treatment plants must have in place secondary treatment facilities and for industry it is necessary to utilize what is referred to as "best practical technology" for waste treatment. Under certain circumstances as described in section 303 of the law further treatment may be required to meet water quality standards. Section 208 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 calls for area-wide implementation of technical and management planning, with the objectives of meeting 1983 water quality goals and establishing a plan for municipal and industrial facilities construction over a twenty year period. Emphasis is placed on locally controlled planning, on dealing with non-point sources as well as point sources, and on consideration of both structural and nonstructural control methods. The scope of present examination is limited to those aspects of technical planning which are amenable to implementation within the framework of a computerized decision support system

Second Best Energy Policies

The paper considers the problem of resource allocation when factor groups attempt to obtain a share of real income which is greater than what would be imputed by classical economies. A formulation stressing the Divvy nature of the problem is given both in theoretical terms and with a framework which is susceptible to empirical estimation. Policy questions resulting from the formation of OPEC are discussed and a framework for policy analysis is given

Structure of a File Oriented Programming Language, GPLAN-BL-1

Modern computer science has developed languages along many distinct paths; three are: Operating System Languages (e.g., OS/JCL), High Level Procedural Languages (e.g., FORTRAN), and High Level Non-Procedural Data Base Languages (e.g., ALPHA, SQUARE, GPLAN). The purpose of each of these is to solve a particular problem, namely, to simplify the work of the programmer, so that a majority of his time could be spent on his own application. The development of data manipulation procedures has also proceeded independently; of programming languages only in the programming language LISP are data and program expressed in a common manner. We feel that the time has come for a new approach to computer language evolution, especially for business oriented users. The combination of data, programs, and operating system into a single language would make a great simplification of the current state of affairs. The BL/I language is presented as a prototype for a data base oriented computer system, combining features from operating systems, programming languages, and data base languages

A General Equilibrium Framework for the Divvy Economy

In a recent paper, G. Dantzig has formulated a model for resource allocation in the so called "Divvy Institutional Economy." The author proves the existence of a general equilibrium solution to the economic problem (in terms of prices and quantities of input factors and final goods) which at the same time satisfies agreed upon shares of monetary flows allocated to input resource groups and to output consumer groups. The agreement upon the share values is carried out by a political process, while the market mechanisms adjust the prices of primary resource inputs and the relative sizes of the consumer groups until those shares are satisfied. The inputs and outputs and the production and transformation technology are presented in an Input-Output format. The formalization of the resource allocation problem takes into account the presence of institutionalized forces together with the market mechanism. Examples can be taken from empirical observation (collective bargaining, Congressional Budget Approval, indexed prices of raw material) is per se a major innovation with respect to more classical results. In the following sections we we will try to view the Divvy results in relation to the classic economic formulation of the problem and study possible implications of it

Duality and Geometric Programming

Two main problems arise from the use of the Transcendental Logarithmic form: 1. For practical and estimation purposes, the authors take the approximating function as the true function and include any possible source of error in the error term of the regression equation. This implies that there is no way of telling whether the results are affected by stochastic or approximation error. 2. The Cobb-Douglas and the CES production function have the property of "self duality", i.e., both the production and the cost forms are members of the same family of functional forms. This makes irrelevant the choice of representation of the technology by the production or cost functions. The Transcendental Logarithmic Form when taken as, the true form for the primal (dual) problem and then taken again as the true form of the dual (primal), makes one of the selections arbitrary since the form is not self-dual. This point is treated by Burgess [9] who shows with empirical results the consequences of choosing the cost or the production Transcendental Logarithmic form as a representation of the underlying technology. This paper is addressed to the possible solution of these two problems while still being able to work with more general production functions. We propose for the consideration of the economists interested in the Theory of Production, the Geometric Programming (GP) method of solving cost minimization problems which is extensively used in engineering. The similarities observed in both fields also indicate the possible benefits of closer communication among them. In the coming sections, we give an introduction to GP and illustrate with examples using the Cobb-Douglas, CES, and a more general explicit production function

Stable Taxation Schemes in Regional Environmental Management

Economists have frequently proposed the use of taxes to internalize externalities, the unit tax on a particular activity being equal to the marginal social damage it generates. This paper introduces such a taxation scheme, comprising a set of rules which, given a set of polluters, their profits and costs, and a Central Authority for environmental control, generates a set of taxes to be levied on the waste emissions. Different attributes of the taxation schemes are then presented, the most important of which (stability) refers to the possibility of overall cooperation between all the polluters. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the existence of stable taxation schemes and of the imposition of constraints either on the emissions or on the percentage of load removed