IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v46y2016i4d10.1007_s00355-015-0943-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toss one’s cake, and eat it too: partial divisions can improve social welfare in cake cutting

Author

Listed:
  • Orit Arzi

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Yonatan Aumann

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Yair Dombb

    (Bar-Ilan University)

Abstract

We consider the problem of fairly dividing a heterogeneous good (a.k.a. “cake”) between a number of players with different tastes. In this setting, it is known that fairness requirements may result in a suboptimal division from the social welfare standpoint. Here we show that, in some cases, leaving some of the cake unallocated, and fairly dividing only the remainder of the cake may be socially preferable to any fair division of the entire cake. We study this phenomenon, providing asymptotically-tight bounds on the social improvement achievable by such partial divisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Orit Arzi & Yonatan Aumann & Yair Dombb, 2016. "Toss one’s cake, and eat it too: partial divisions can improve social welfare in cake cutting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(4), pages 933-954, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:46:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-015-0943-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-015-0943-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00355-015-0943-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00355-015-0943-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herve Moulin, 2004. "Fair Division and Collective Welfare," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633116, December.
    2. Weller, Dietrich, 1985. "Fair division of a measurable space," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 5-17, February.
    3. William Thomson, 2007. "Fair Allocation Rules," RCER Working Papers 539, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    4. Fabio Maccheroni & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Massimo Marinacci, 2003. "How to cut a pizza fairly: Fair division with decreasing marginal evaluations," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 20(3), pages 457-465, June.
    5. Brams, Steven J. & Jones, Michael A. & Klamler, Christian, 2011. "N-Person cake-cutting: there may be no perfect division," MPRA Paper 34264, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Chambers, Christopher P., 2005. "Allocation rules for land division," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 236-258, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erel Segal-Halevi & Balázs R. Sziklai, 2019. "Monotonicity and competitive equilibrium in cake-cutting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(2), pages 363-401, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco LiCalzi & Antonio Nicolò, 2009. "Efficient egalitarian equivalent allocations over a single good," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 40(1), pages 27-45, July.
    2. Erel Segal-Halevi & Shmuel Nitzan, 2019. "Fair cake-cutting among families," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(4), pages 709-740, December.
    3. Erel Segal-Halevi & Balázs R. Sziklai, 2019. "Monotonicity and competitive equilibrium in cake-cutting," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 68(2), pages 363-401, September.
    4. Segal-Halevi, Erel & Nitzan, Shmuel & Hassidim, Avinatan & Aumann, Yonatan, 2017. "Fair and square: Cake-cutting in two dimensions," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1-28.
    5. Erel Segal-Halevi & Shmuel Nitzan & Avinatan Hassidim & Yonatan Aumann, 2020. "Envy-Free Division of Land," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 45(3), pages 896-922, August.
    6. Erel Segal-Halevi & Shmuel Nitzan, 2014. "Cake Cutting – Fair and Square," Working Papers 2014-01, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    7. Cole, Richard & Tao, Yixin, 2021. "On the existence of Pareto Efficient and envy-free allocations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. Antonio Nicolò & Andrés Perea y Monsuwe & Paolo Roberti, 2012. "Equal opportunity equivalence in land division," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 133-142, March.
    9. Balazs Sziklai & Erel Segal-Halevi, 2015. "Resource-monotonicity and Population-monotonicity in Cake-cutting," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1552, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    10. Ji-Won Park & Jaeup U. Kim & Cheol-Min Ghim & Chae Un Kim, 2021. "The Boltzmann fair division for distributive justice," Papers 2109.11917, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2021.
    11. Thomson, William, 2011. "Chapter Twenty-One - Fair Allocation Rules," Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, in: K. J. Arrow & A. K. Sen & K. Suzumura (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Welfare, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 21, pages 393-506, Elsevier.
    12. Chambers, Christopher P., 2005. "Allocation rules for land division," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 236-258, April.
    13. Pivato, Marcus, 2010. "Approximate interpersonal comparisons of well-being," MPRA Paper 25224, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Husseinov, Farhad, 2011. "A theory of a heterogeneous divisible commodity exchange economy," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 54-59, January.
    15. Segal-Halevi, Erel & Sziklai, Balázs R., 2018. "Resource-monotonicity and population-monotonicity in connected cake-cutting," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 19-30.
    16. Bhardwaj, Bhavook & Kumar, Rajnish & Ortega, Josué, 2020. "Fairness and efficiency in cake-cutting with single-peaked preferences," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    17. Gajdos, Thibault & Maurin, Eric, 2004. "Unequal uncertainties and uncertain inequalities: an axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 93-118, May.
    18. James Schummer, 1999. "Almost-dominant Strategy Implementation," Discussion Papers 1278, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    19. Radzvilas, Mantas, 2016. "Hypothetical Bargaining and the Equilibrium Selection Problem in Non-Cooperative Games," MPRA Paper 70248, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Josué Ortega & Erel Segal-Halevi, 2022. "Obvious manipulations in cake-cutting," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 59(4), pages 969-988, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:46:y:2016:i:4:d:10.1007_s00355-015-0943-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.