Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution [Paperback]

Steven J. Brams (Author), Alan D. Taylor (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521556449 | ISBN-13: 978-0521556446 | Publication Date: February 23, 1996

Fair Division, unlike most research on fairness in the social sciences and mathematics, is devoted solely to the analysis of constructive procedures for actually dividing things up and resolving disputes, including indivisible items or issues, such as the marital property in a divorce or sovereignty in an international dispute.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In a democracy, the problem of fair division of goods is fundamental. It is, for example, what's lurking behind contemporary discussions of affirmative action, divorce law, and even of Medicare and Social Security. Its flip-side problem--burden-sharing--which is implicated in such issues as taxation and the draft, is likewise central. The authors, one a political scientist, the other a mathematician, start with an analysis of the well-known cake-cutting paradigm of "I cut, you choose" and gradually soup it up into a model capable of accommodating situations in which there are more than two parties, or more than one good. They emphasize division procedures that are not only proportional (that give each of n claimants a 1/n share of the good), but that also have the psychological property of being "envy-free"; that is, producing allocations in which each participant thinks (often wrongly, obviously) that he received the largest portion. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"In this remarkable book, Brams and Taylor bring to the attention of the social scientists a literature thus far confined to puzzle-solving and other mathematical magazines....Brams and Taylor's original fair division procedures are of interest to all researchers." Hervé Moulin, Duke University

"...explains everything a layperson might need to know about fair division....Even lawyers should love the book." Discover

"Their message is important and it has many ramifications." Oxford International Review

"Brams and Taylor's book is a fine survey of procedures of fair division. It provides an invaluable reference for researchers, designers of fair procedures, as well as for teachers who want to discuss the games of fair division in their advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on distributive justice or conflict resolution." Marek M. Kaminski, Ethics & International Affairs

"Clear exposition and the rich collection of psychologically and socially intersting illustrations make this book eminently suitable for social science courses." A. Rapoport, Mathematical Reviews

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 23, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521556449
• ISBN-13: 978-0521556446
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #21 in Books > Law > Procedures & Litigation > Alternative Dispute Resolution

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive resource, easily read, July 25, 2000

By 

Vincent Natividad (Tooele, Utah USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution (Paperback)

This was easily the book I referred to most in my Master's paper on fair division. It covers a lot of topics, including envy-free and equitable division, fair division by auctions, and fair division by elections. The authors devote a chapter to their favorite method, the so-called "combined procedure" that is equitable, envy-free, and Pareto-optimal for two players and would be invaluable to any divorce lawyer.

For those accustomed to reading mathematics or economics, this book is readable. For the layperson, it might be a little bit too technical in spots. While it has many practical examples, it isn't really a fair division manual for the do-it-yourselfer. But it's as close as you're going to get, for now.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something Worderful is Going to Happen, August 22, 2000

By 

Roger Gay "rogerfgay" (Haninge, Sweden) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution (Paperback)

Steven Brams and Alan Taylor accomplish something quite interesting and worth paying attention to. They move concepts traditionally treated in policy debate and law with simple hit-or-miss human judgment and discretion into concrete analyzable mathematical processes. In the more than ten years that I've worked on the mathematics of child support, I have not yet been so convincing that such a transformation from subjective into objective is possible. Let the games continue!

Roger F. Gay, Project Leader Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/index.html

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars on time, nice book, April 12, 2008

By 

Philip Gleason "sf-fan" (Boca Raton, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fair Division: From Cake-Cutting to Dispute Resolution (Paperback)

Voting systems are quirkier than we generally knew. Good insight into what works and what the problems are.