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Camp David: Was the Agreement Fair?
Abstract
The agreement between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978 is used to illustrate how a fair-division procedure called Adjusted Winner (AW), in which two sides allocate 100 points over the issues that divide them, could have been used to reach a settlement. AW satisfies the properties of envy-freeness (each side is ensured of receiving at least 50 of its points and hence does not envy the other side), equitability (each side receives the same number of points over 50), and efficiency (there is no other settlement better for both players). While the actual agreement at Camp David seems to reflect quite well what AW would have yielded on the six issues that divided the two sides, this agreement probably could have been achieved more expeditiously, and in a less crisis-driven atmosphere, if AW had been used.
... Such a realization pushed the Egyptian leadership to terminate the state of belligerency and begin to secure its interest through diplomatic means. By the same token, Yom Kippur clarified to Israel that the victory of the Six-Day War and its consequential territorial expansion, as punitive and decisive as they were, did not successfully deter the Arab enemies-that, in the face of enemies willing to risk everything to reclaim a piece of land deemed integral, the reality of an Israeli military superiority still could not ensure a lasting peace (Brams & Togman, 1996). This, too, in turn convince the Israelis that a stubborn perpetuation of belligerency and occupation cannot endure. ...
... On the other hand, while Egypt did not regard the two territories to bear significant worth to its economic or geostrategic interest, it was determined that their liberation from Israeli control would have a significant symbolic meaning of its victory. Such a historic achievement was direly needed for the country to overcome the soaring challenge from the Arab world towards its image as a regional leader (Brams & Togman, 1996). The debate over these chasmic issues lasted for fourteen days. ...
... Thirdly, the Israeli military was required to withdraw from occupied territories in light of the spirit enshrined in the UN Security Council Resolution 242. It is noteworthy to recognize the stretchable character of the resolution as it only talked of "territories occupied in the recent conflict [referring to the Six-Day War]" while not defining what those territories consisted of (Brams & Togman, 1996;Hanieh, 2001). ...
... In this manner, based on the idea of improving negotiated results by means of post-negotiation procedures, we modify a formal procedure, namely the adjusted winner (AW) procedure of Brams and Taylor [7]. Our study uses the AW, which tackles the problem of the fair division of goods amongst negotiators and has been recommended for real-world negotiation challenges [27,28]. For instance, Raith and Welzel [29] characterise the AW procedure as an algorithm that covers a broad spectrum of negotiation problems and demonstrate that it increases negotiation effectiveness by presenting an adjusted version of the Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining solution. ...
... Figure 3 presents the experimental design. The participants of the face-to-face negotiations were business studies students in a negotiation class emphasising the Harvard method and multiple issue negotiations [51], with an average age of 24.52 years (range: [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. A proportion of 41% of the participants was male. ...
This study explores the potential of computational decision support to enhance social exchange and interactions by leveraging human strengths with formal procedures. The study aims to determine whether mathematical post-negotiation procedures can improve negotiation outcomes and overcome the limitations of human-only approaches in situations of power asymmetry. Results indicate that an increase in power does not necessarily lead to more efficient negotiations and that the use of mathematical post-negotiation procedures significantly enhances overall outcomes. Furthermore, the study highlights that the powerful party is likely to benefit the most from a neutral post-negotiation procedure. These findings demonstrate that power imbalances do not compensate for insufficient negotiation skills or effort, and may even decrease the likelihood of success. Nonetheless, the study concludes that post-negotiation procedures can reveal mutually advantageous options for both parties, even in cases where power dynamics are unbalanced.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
Choice-making is a popular phenomenon involved in all aspects of social life. Scholars from various fields have studied how decisions are made in different situations and have developed a variety of decision theories and methods. In chapter 2, I selected six prominent theories and models in political choice and international relations studies, including three from the analytic/rational choice school and three from the cognitive decision school, and discussed their contributions and limitations. In this chapter, I attempt to construct a theoretical framework to address the essential aspects of bilateral international relations and interactive choices by integrating some key elements from both rational and cognitive schools. The theoretical framework constructed here is called the spatial supergame model. By developing the spatial supergame model, I hope to bring together some seemingly disparate pieces of theoretical and empirical knowledge about interstate choices and relations and incorporate them into a synthesized and empirically testable framework.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
In this study I developed a spatial supergame model of bilateral international relations based on an interactive choice-making perspective and conducted a series of empirical tests of the most critical propositions derived from the model. Key variables in the spatial supergame model include a pair of players, critical issue dimensions, issue game structures (preferences, strategies, and non-myopic equilibria), and players’ attention dynamics. The notion of bounded rationality is viewed as the fundamental mechanism that governs the play of the spatial supergame.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
The discipline of international relations explores how nation-states interact with each other. There are numerous theoretical approaches to the study of these international interactions. In one approach, scholars examine the association between patterns of interstate behavior and the systemic structure of world politics based on universal assumptions about nation-state’s motivation, behavior, and interaction (Morgenthau 1967; Organski 1968; Waltz 1979; Bueno de Mequista 1980; Organski and Kugler 1980; Gilpin 1981; Modelski 1987). In another approach, scholars infer the patterns of state-to-state interaction from nation-states’ domestic attributes (Tanter 1966; Rummel 1968; Putnam 1988; Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman 1992). The choice-making approach to international relations investigates how foreign policy decisions are made by focusing on national foreign policy decision-making structures, processes, and outcomes. Choice-making in foreign affairs involves the analysis of past and current data, the assessment of available options for national action, and the identification of final policy choice. The significance of the choice-making approach lies in the contention that world politics and interstate relations cannot be explained with theories that exclude the structures and processes of national foreign policy decision-making.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
The next two chapters employ a quasi-experimental research design to test the explanatory power of the spatial supergame model by using the framework and the propositions developed in the previous chapter to empirically examine the multidimensional interactions between the United States and China.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
... They also show that the Nash Bargaining solution can be implemented in a similar fashion by updating an appropriate stopping rule on the Pareto boundary; a related work see also Haake et al. (1999). The Adjusted-Winner procedure has recently been applied to cases of real world disputes in international relations (Brams and Togman, 1997;Denoon and Brams, 1997). An interesting approach to two-party negotiations was taken by Kersten and Noronha (1998). ...
... On the other hand, it should be stressed that the information here is incomplete, i.e., the parties do not know each others' preferences. Consequently, misrepresentation of the knowledge given to the mediator can lead tò`b ack®res'' in several ways; see Brams and Togman (1997) and the discussion in Ehtamo et al. (1999b). ...
We develop a constructive approach to multi-party negotiations over continuous issues. The method is intended to be used as a mediator's tool for step-by-step creation of joint gains in order to reach a Pareto-optimal agreement. During the mediation process, the parties are only required to answer relatively simple questions concerning their preferences; they do not have to reveal their utility functions completely. The method generates jointly improving directions to move along, and it is a non-trivial generalization of the recently proposed two-party methods. We give a mathematical analysis together with a numerical example, but also a practical basis for negotiation support in real-world settings.
... Egyptian and Israeli leaders' concerns regarding each issue (Brams and Togman 1998). The concept of importance ratio is similar to Jones' (1994) concept of "attention ratio," and both suggest an unequal attention distribution among critical issues. ...
... 9. In their recent study of the Camp David Accords of 1978, Brams and Togman (1998) note there were six major issues ranked from most to least important by the Egyptian and Israeli leaders when they convened at Camp David. The "importance ratio" among the six major issues represented ...
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas A & M University, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-217). Vita. Photocopy.
... This question has much been discussed in the game theory literature; see [3, chap 8] and the references therein, where a coordination problem in a "Prisoners' Dilemma" game is discussed. On the other hand, it should be stressed that the information here is incomplete, except that the mediator has access to local information about the DMs' preferences, and consequently, in this case, untruthful revelation of preferences to the mediator can lead to "backfires" in several ways [4]. ...
... Analytic approaches could play a useful role in supporting these complex negotiations [30]. The Adjusted-Winner procedure has recently been applied to cases of real-world disputes in international relations, like that between Egypt and Israel at Camp David in 1978 (see Brams and Togman [4] and Brams [2] for an analysis of this case using game theoretic models of bargaining) and that between China, Taiwan, and some other Southeast Asian nations concerning the Spratly Islands (see Denoon and Brams [7]). Among the many environmental topics, negotiations over fishery rights are of great present interest. ...
Empirical evidence suggests that, in practice, it is difficult to
reach Pareto-optimal agreements in negotiations. In this paper, we take
a constructive approach to this question in two-party negotiations over
continuous issues. A new negotiation procedure is presented that results
in Pareto-optimal agreements under fairly general assumptions. The
procedure uses a mediator who assists the decision makers (DMs) by
choosing jointly beneficial compromises. The procedure has the appealing
feature that the DMs are only required to answer relatively simple
questions and their individual utility functions need not be identified
completely. Moreover, the DMs reveal minimal private information to the
mediator. These are properties that we would hope to have in practical
procedures to be incorporated in operational negotiation support systems
... The Adjusted Winner algorithm of Brams and Taylor (1996) has been used to analyse both the Panama Canal treaty negotiations and the Camp David Accords. Brams and Togman (1996) applied the Adjusted Winner procedure to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians and reached a similar result to the final agreement. Massoud (2000) used interest-based negotiation (namely the Adjusted Winner algorithm) to propose a plausible solution to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians. ...
In this article, we review the use of Artificial Intelligence to provide intelligent dispute resolution support. In the early years there was little systematic development of such systems. Rather a number of ad hoc systems were developed. The focus of these systems was upon the technology being utilised, rather than user needs. Following a review of historic systems, we focus upon what are the important components of intelligent Online Dispute Resolution systems. Arising from this review, we develop an initial model for constructing user centric intelligent Online Dispute Resolution systems. Such a model integrates Case management, Triaging, Advisory tools, Communication tools, Decision Support Tools and Drafting software. No single dispute is likely to require all six processes to resolve the issue at stake. However, the development of such a hybrid ODR system would be very significant important starting point for expanding into a world where Artificial Intelligence is gainfully used.
... Adjusted Winner has also been applied to the Panama Canal treaty and Camp David Accords. Brams and Togman (1998) applied the Adjusted Winner procedure to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians. used the game theoretic approach developed in his Asset Divider system (see later in this chapter) to propose resolutions for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. ...
The growth of Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) means that consumers are now presented with a range of options on the market to suit their needs. With the intention of these services to optimise effectiveness and efficiency for their users, it is paramount that robust evidence be demonstrated for their quality to support their preferential use when compared to other forms of dispute resolution service delivery. The literature review presented in this chapter was conducted to scope the current research and practice evidence for online dispute resolution in family law as relating to child custody issues. The use of OFDR services in both Australian and international contexts was investigated across a range of electronic sources since 2011. Of those programs located by the review, it was evident that while more methodologically rigorous research is required, preliminary evidence shows support for OFDR effectiveness in reaching desirable and fair outcomes. The considerations for selecting technologically-enhanced services are discussed, as are the avenues for future research and directions to further develop OFDR as a viable option for informal conflict resolution. This chapter demonstrates how knowing the literature helps to inform future OFDR development and enhance service delivery.
... Adjusted Winner has also been applied to the Panama Canal treaty and Camp David Accords. Brams and Togman (1998) applied the Adjusted Winner procedure to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Zeleznikow (2014) used the game theoretic approach developed in his Asset Divider system (see later in this chapter) to propose resolutions for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. ...
The integration of technology with dispute resolution practices follows the identification of a range of value-added benefits in both formal and informal legal proceedings. In recent years, there has been a movement towards investigating how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the functioning of online family dispute resolution (OFDR) systems after successful application to other types of disputes. This chapter provides an overview of the development of AI in disputes in order to understand current progress within family law. Several existing negotiation support systems for use in Australian family contexts are described, including Split-Up, Family_Winner, and Asset-Divider, the latter of which incorporates principles of justice in a game theory framework. Negotiation support systems facilitate informed decision-making through performance improvement via machine learning while the integration of game theory assists in the distribution of resources to ensure the best outcome. As online dispute resolution begins to gain public and private traction culminating in the normalisation and institutionalisation of services, it becomes important to carefully consider issues of justice, regulation, and quality assurance.
... Adjusted Winner has also been applied to the Panama Canal treaty and Camp David Accords. Brams and Togman (1998) applied the Adjusted Winner procedure to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians. used the game theoretic approach developed in his Asset Divider system (see later in this chapter) to propose resolutions for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. ...
Although dispute resolution has a long and rich documented history, the growth of out-of-court settlements and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes in Australia has been a recent development with family dispute resolution (FDR) services younger still. This chapter overviews the history of FDR in Australia to contextualise the development of online family dispute resolution (OFDR). As an extension to the already accessible Telephone Family Dispute Resolution service, OFDR offers the added value of multi-media engagement and innovative online tools to assist in easing the process of mediation for all stakeholders. From the introduction of the Family Law Act in Australia in 1975 to the 2006 Reforms, informal dispute processes are becoming recognised as fertile ground to deliver services via the use of advanced technologies. This chapter presents evidence as to the value of ADR in family law to mitigate issues concerning increased service demand, strained court resources, and the avoidance of emotionally taxing adversarial approaches. History shows a trend toward making services more efficient and effective, resulting in a natural progression to ODFR. Australia is currently at the forefront of OFDR advancement to accommodate their diverse and dispersed population.
... Adjusted Winner has also been applied to the Panama Canal treaty and Camp David Accords. Brams and Togman (1998) applied the Adjusted Winner procedure to the final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians. used the game theoretic approach developed in his Asset Divider system (see later in this chapter) to propose resolutions for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. ...
The previous chapter emphasised the need for more methodologically rigorous evidence in online family dispute resolution (OFDR) if these technologically-enhanced services are to be useful and enduring. The contribution of Australia to furthering OFDR knowledge and practice worldwide is exemplified by an innovative pilot project conducted by Relationships Australia Queensland in 2009. Both the development of the software and its subsequent evaluation were evidence-based and intended to adhere to best practice through the adoption of an iterative design that incorporated ongoing quantitative and qualitative data from all stakeholders to optimise system functioning and utility. This chapter summarises processes, findings, and recommendations of this pilot across the four stages of the program design: registration, intake, pre-FDR education, and OFDR. Clients and staff reported largely positive attitudes towards OFDR, with need to appreciate the learning curve involved in navigating the system and how the technology qualitatively changes the mediation process. This pilot sets the standard for the development and evaluation of OFDR services in Australia and worldwide by subjecting the service to extensive systematic testing and evaluation to promote continuous learning and improvement.
... The approach can be viewed as a natural extension of the Adjusted Winner rule (see e.g. Brams and Togman (1996)) that finds an envy-free and Pareto optimal allocation among two agents in which only at most one item is shared. ...
Fairness is becoming an increasingly important concern when designing markets, allocation procedures, and computer systems. I survey some recent developments in the field of multi-agent fair allocation.
... Although the algorithm was decentralized and most participants did not fully understand it or the preference information desired, it handled all major considerations well and was regarded as equitable. Brams and Togman (1996) perform a counterfactual analysis of the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, in light of the Adjusted Winner (AW) protocol (Brams and Taylor, 1996). This is a protocol for simultaneously resolving several issues under conflict, such that the agreement is envy-free, equitable, and Pareto efficient. ...
Using a lab experiment, we investigate the real-life performance of envy-free and proportional cake-cutting procedures with respect to fairness and preference manipulation. We find that envy-free procedures, in particular Selfridge-Conway and the symmetric and asymmetric versions of cut-and-choose, are fairer and also are perceived as fairer than their proportional counterparts, despite the fact that agents very often manipulate them. Our results support the practical use of these procedures, and more generally, of envy-free cake-cutting mechanisms. We also find that subjects learn their opponents' preferences after repeated interaction and use this knowledge to improve their allocated share of the cake. Learning reduces truth-telling behavior and envy.
... cf.Hare 1984;Powell 1985;Stein 1985;Bercovitch 1986;Quandt 1986; Quandt 1988;Telhami 1990; Kriesberg 1991;Safty 1991;Brams 1996. ...
... Finding a connection between rivalry and geography would suggest the need for bringing the now disparate strands of territory and rivalry research closer together. In terms of policy making, the connection would call for application of conflict management techniques used to deal with territorial problems – such as arbitration (Simmons, 1999), fair settlements (Brams and Togman, 1999), and perhaps even territorial transfers (Tir, 1999). Second, we advance the rivalry research agenda by considering when and why territorial enduring rivalries are especially dangerous. ...
... Finding a connection, if any, between rivalry and geographic factors would suggest the need for bringing the two now disparate strands of political science and geography research closer together. In terms of policy making, the connection would call for application of conflict management techniques used to deal with territorial problems -such as arbitration (Simmons, 1999), fair settlements (Brams & Togman, 1999), and perhaps even territorial transfers (Tir, 1999(Tir, , 2000. ...
In this study, we show that our understanding of rivalries can be enhanced by a greater consideration of the connection between this phenomenon and geographic factors. More specifically, we seek to understand the impacts of territoriality (i.e. disputes over land control) and space (i.e. contiguity) on rivalry. Prior works tell us that these factors are important in individual militarized conflicts, but until now we did not know whether they also impact patterns of recurring conflicts. Although we find that both territorial disputes and contiguity matter little for rivalries in general, we do demonstrate that both factors’ importance grows as we consider the more serious types of rivalries. In other words, most rivalries are not fought over territory or between neighbors, but a substantial portion of proto- and enduring rivalries are conditioned by territorial disputes and proximity. We also investigate whether disputes over land and contiguity have impacts on conflict density, rivalry development, and rivalry severity. We show that both factors increase the frequency of conflict and the chances of serious rivalry development. In contrast, rivalry severity is more of a function of the underlying issue the rivals disagree over (i.e. territorial control) than of opportunity to fight (i.e. proximity).
When assets are to be divided among several partners, for example, a partnership split, fair division theory can be used to determine a fair allocation. The applicability of existing approaches is limited as they either treat assets as divisible resources that end up being shared among participants or deal with indivisible objects providing only approximate fairness. In practice, sharing is often possible but undesirable, and approximate fairness is not adequate, particularly for highly valuable assets. In “Efficient Fair Division with Minimal Sharing,” Sandomirskiy and Segal-Halevi introduce a novel approach offering a middle ground: the number of shared objects is minimized while maintaining exact fairness and economic efficiency. This minimization can be conducted in polynomial time for generic instances if the number of agents or objects is fixed. Experiments on real data demonstrate a substantial improvement over current methods.
Using two lab experiments, we investigate the real-life performance of envy-free and proportional cake-cutting procedures with respect to fairness and preference manipulation. Although the observed subjects' strategic behavior eliminates the fairness guarantees of envy-free procedures, we nonetheless find evidence that suggests that envy-free procedures are fairer than their proportional counterparts.
Our results support the practical use of the celebrated Selfridge-Conway procedure, and more generally, of envy-free cake-cutting mechanisms. We also find that subjects learn their opponents' preferences after repeated interaction and use this knowledge to improve their allocated share of the cake. Learning increases strategic behavior, but also reduces envy.
Fair division of land is an important practical problem that is commonly handled either by hiring assessors or by selling and dividing the proceeds. A third way to divide land fairly is via algorithms for fair cake-cutting. Such un-intermediated methods are not only cheaper than an assessor but also theoretically fairer since they guarantee each agent a fair share according to his/her value function. However, the current theory of fair cake-cutting is not yet ready to optimally share a plot of land, and such algorithms are seldom used in practical land division. We attempt to narrow the gap between theory and practice by presenting several heuristic adaptations of famous algorithms for one-dimensional cake-cutting to two-dimensional land-division. The heuristics are evaluated using extensive simulations on real land-value data maps from three different data sets and a fourth (control) map of random values. The simulations compare the performance of cake-cutting algorithms to sale and assessor division in various performance metrics, such as utilitarian welfare, egalitarian welfare, Nash social welfare, envy, and geometric shape. The cake-cutting algorithms perform better in most metrics. However, their performance is greatly influenced by technical implementation details and heuristics that are often overlooked by theorists. We also propose a new protocol for practical cake-cutting using a dynamic programming approach and discuss its run-time complexity versus performance trade-off. Our new protocol performs better than the examined classic cake-cutting algorithms on most metrics. Experiments to assess the amount that a strategic agent can gain from reporting false preferences are also presented. The results show that the problem of strategic manipulation is much less severe than the worst-case predicted by theory.
A set of objects, some goods and some bads, is to be divided fairly among agents with different tastes, modeled by additive utility-functions. If the objects cannot be shared, so that each of them must be entirely allocated to a single agent, then fair division may not exist. What is the smallest number of objects that must be shared between two or more agents in order to attain a fair division? We focus on Pareto-optimal, envy-free and/or proportional allocations. We show that, for a generic instance of the problem --- all instances except of a zero-measure set of degenerate problems --- a fair and Pareto-optimal division with the smallest possible number of shared objects can be found in polynomial time, assuming that the number of agents is fixed. The problem becomes computationally hard for degenerate instances, where the agents' valuations are aligned for many objects.
‘For decades the Israel–Palestinian conflict has been characterized as intractable, inextricable, and the root cause of suffering and misery for many of the people who live in the Middle East region’. Whilst it would be unwise to expect that the solution to this problem can be provided by negotiation support systems, we believe such systems can provide useful advice and allow disputants to more adequately understand their goals and support them to perform the trade-offs necessary to arrive at acceptable solutions. Given our research on interested based negotiation support systems to provide family mediation advice, we pose the question about the ability of such systems to provide useful advice about the Israel–Palestinian dispute. We examine the differences between family mediation and international conflict resolution and reflect upon whether results from the former can provide useful advice in the latter. After identifying the issues in dispute and each of the disputant’s goals, the data is fed into the Asset Divider system. The system allows users to engage in testing the potential outcome of their dispute given their beliefs and goals. The system hence outlines to users the consequences of insisting upon their stances. The outcome proposed by the system given trial data, is similar to the successful Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, where Israel gave up territory for recognition and security.
Game decision situations are characterized by independent decision makers with diverging preferences making independent decisions. While these situations are apparently described by noncooperative game theory, practical applications of this theory are limited by several factors:
1.
Generally, but particularly in strongly competitive situations, decision makers are not inclined to reveal their preferences, especially in the basic form of a utility or value function. This makes it extremely hard, and often impossible, to compute game equilibria that could be used in negotiations, for example, for estimating BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement) as a status quo point. Game equilibria can be computed only under extremely simplifying assumptions (e.g., that all players minimize the costs of environmental protection) and thus can serve only as rough approximations.
2.
In more complex situations, characterized by nonlinear or multicriteria models, equilibria are essentially nonunique (a nonlinear equation usually has multiple solutions). The analysis of multiple equilibria, their stability, etc., is for various reasons1 not very far advanced in game theory that concentrated on arguments for choosing a unique equilibrium as a rational outcome of a game. In addition, multiple equilibria often lead to conflict escalation processes.
More than half a century after the birth of game theory as an academic (sub)discipline, many experienced negotiators and mediators
continue to work without any formal support from game theory or related subjects. In the last decades, hopes have risen that
mathematical procedures for the fair division of goods might be able to bridge this gulf. “Adjusted Winner” (AW), a procedure
suggested by Brams and Taylor [2], promises to satisfy several standards of fairness simultaneously and, for this reason will
be scrutinized here.
A new generic mechanism to coordinate decentral planning of a group of independent and self-interested decision makers, who
are searching for an agreeable contract regarding multiple interdependent issues, in the case of asymmetric information is
presented. The basic idea of the mechanism is that the group members cooperatively carry out an evolutionary search in the
contract space. Therefore the (1,λ)-selection procedure, which is used in many evolutionary strategies, is combined with the Borda maximin voting rule, which
has been applied successfully in group decision making. The proposed mechanism is realized, applied and evaluated for production
coordination in a supply chain. Adecentralized variant of the multi-level uncapacitated lot-sizing problem (MLULSP) is taken
as the production model. For the evaluation 95 problem instances are generated based on MLULSP instances taken from the literature,
with problem sizes varying from 5 to 500 items, from 12 to 52 periods. Experimental results show that the proposed mechanism
is effective to determine fair cost distributions.
KeywordsCoordination–Supply chain–Lot-sizing–Voting
Voters today often desert a preferred candidate for a more viable second choice to avoid wasting their vote. Likewise, parties to a dispute often find themselves unable to agree on a fair division of contested goods. InMathematics and Democracy, Steven Brams, a leading authority in the use of mathematics to design decision-making processes, shows how social-choice and game theory could make political and social institutions more democratic. Using mathematical analysis, he develops rigorous new procedures that enable voters to better express themselves and that allow disputants to divide goods more fairly.One of the procedures that Brams proposes is "approval voting," which allows voters to vote for as many candidates as they like or consider acceptable. There is no ranking, and the candidate with the most votes wins. The voter no longer has to consider whether a vote for a preferred but less popular candidate might be wasted. In the same vein, Brams puts forward new, more equitable procedures for resolving disputes over divisible and indivisible goods.
A dispute resolution mechanism called Adjusted Winner (AW), developed by Steven J. Brams and Alan D. Taylor is used to propose plausible solutions to the pulp mill conflict between Argentina and Uruguay. By allocating 100 points over the issues that divide them, AW produces settlements that are equitable, efficient, and envy free for both Argentina and Uruguay. Based on established positions from each side, results show that Argentina is consistently awarded the issues of liquid emissions, atmospheric emissions, and the environmental impact assessment, whereas Uruguay is awarded the technological, and roadblock issue either in their entirety or in a majority split.
Adjusted Winner (AW), a dispute-resolution procedure applicable to two-party negotiations over the division of multiple items, is described and applied to divorce cases. AW involves the parties' allocating 100 points over the items to be divided, with a referee or mediator assigning them to each party after an “equitability adjustment,” which may involve splitting or sharing one item. AW can reduce posturing in disputes and lead to a more satisfying outcome for both parties. AW leaves lawyers and mediators with important roles to play in advising their clients on how best to use the procedure.
Cutting a cake, dividing up the property in an estate, determining the borders in an international dispute - such problems of fair division are ubiquitous. Fair Division treats all these problems and many more through a rigorous analysis of a variety of procedures for allocating goods (or 'bads' like chores), or deciding who wins on what issues, when there are disputes. Starting with an analysis of the well-known cake-cutting procedure, 'I cut, you choose', the authors show how it has been adapted in a number of fields and then analyze fair-division procedures applicable to situations in which there are more than two parties, or there is more than one good to be divided. In particular they focus on procedures which provide 'envy-free' allocations, in which everybody thinks he or she has received the largest portion and hence does not envy anybody else. They also discuss the fairness of different auction and election procedures.