EXPRESS: Fairness as a Robust Utilitarianism

IF 4.8 3区 管理学 Q1 ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING
Maoqi Liu, Qingchun Meng, Guodong Yu, Zhi-Hai Zhang
{"title":"EXPRESS: Fairness as a Robust Utilitarianism","authors":"Maoqi Liu, Qingchun Meng, Guodong Yu, Zhi-Hai Zhang","doi":"10.1177/10591478241262285","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the social choice problem in which decisions are based on the utility of multiple stakeholder types. The sum of these utilities – Utilitarian welfare - is one of the most important objectives in solving the social choice problem. While it is the most efficient solution, maximizing Utilitarian welfare may lead to unfair outcomes. However, Encouraging a Utilitarian decision-maker to adopt a fair decision is challenging due to the associated efficiency loss. This article takes a novel perspective by motivating a Utilitarian decision-maker to make fair decisions from an uncertainty-averse standpoint. We study the problem where the proportions of stakeholder types are uncertain and propose a distributionally robust optimization (DRO) model that maximizes the worst-case Utilitarian welfare over an ϕ-divergence-based uncertainty set. We provide three aspects of the relationship between fairness and the uncertain-averse Utilitarian welfare maximization. First, we establish that the worst-case Utilitarian welfare adheres to all five axioms of unfairness-averse cardinal welfare functions with two stakeholder types and satisfies four of these when this number exceeds two. Second, we demonstrate that with the maximal extent of uncertainty aversion, the DRO model identifies the Egalitarian welfare maximizer, which prioritizes fairness. Further, given serveral conventional assumptions, the proposed model selects the Nash welfare maximizer, an objective trade-off between efficiency and fairness, with moderate levels of uncertainty aversion. Lastly, we present numerical studies of two specific instances of the social choice problem – resource allocation and facility location – to show that, as uncertainty aversion increases, our model increasingly emphasizes fairness.","PeriodicalId":20623,"journal":{"name":"Production and Operations Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Production and Operations Management","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241262285","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENGINEERING, MANUFACTURING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article focuses on the social choice problem in which decisions are based on the utility of multiple stakeholder types. The sum of these utilities – Utilitarian welfare - is one of the most important objectives in solving the social choice problem. While it is the most efficient solution, maximizing Utilitarian welfare may lead to unfair outcomes. However, Encouraging a Utilitarian decision-maker to adopt a fair decision is challenging due to the associated efficiency loss. This article takes a novel perspective by motivating a Utilitarian decision-maker to make fair decisions from an uncertainty-averse standpoint. We study the problem where the proportions of stakeholder types are uncertain and propose a distributionally robust optimization (DRO) model that maximizes the worst-case Utilitarian welfare over an ϕ-divergence-based uncertainty set. We provide three aspects of the relationship between fairness and the uncertain-averse Utilitarian welfare maximization. First, we establish that the worst-case Utilitarian welfare adheres to all five axioms of unfairness-averse cardinal welfare functions with two stakeholder types and satisfies four of these when this number exceeds two. Second, we demonstrate that with the maximal extent of uncertainty aversion, the DRO model identifies the Egalitarian welfare maximizer, which prioritizes fairness. Further, given serveral conventional assumptions, the proposed model selects the Nash welfare maximizer, an objective trade-off between efficiency and fairness, with moderate levels of uncertainty aversion. Lastly, we present numerical studies of two specific instances of the social choice problem – resource allocation and facility location – to show that, as uncertainty aversion increases, our model increasingly emphasizes fairness.
快讯:公平是一种稳健的功利主义
本文重点讨论社会选择问题,在这一问题中,决策是基于多类利益相关者的效用做出的。这些效用的总和--功利福利--是解决社会选择问题的最重要目标之一。虽然这是最有效的解决方案,但最大化功利福利可能会导致不公平的结果。然而,由于相关的效率损失,鼓励功利决策者做出公平决策具有挑战性。本文从一个新颖的角度出发,从不确定性规避的角度激励功利决策者做出公平决策。我们研究了利益相关者类型比例不确定的问题,并提出了一个分布稳健优化(DRO)模型,该模型能在基于 j 发散的不确定性集上最大化最坏情况下的功利主义福利。我们从三个方面阐述了公平性与不确定性规避的功利主义福利最大化之间的关系。首先,我们确定了最坏情况下的功利主义福利遵守两个利益相关者类型的不公平规避心证福利函数的所有五条公理,当利益相关者类型超过两个时,则满足其中四条公理。其次,我们证明了在最大程度的不确定性规避情况下,DRO 模型能识别出平等主义福利最大化者,而平等主义福利最大化者会优先考虑公平性。此外,考虑到一系列传统假设,在中等程度的不确定性规避情况下,所提出的模型会选择纳什福利最大化,即在效率和公平之间进行客观权衡。最后,我们对社会选择问题的两个具体实例--资源分配和设施选址--进行了数值研究,结果表明,随着不确定性厌恶程度的增加,我们的模型越来越强调公平性。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
Production and Operations Management
Production and Operations Management 管理科学-工程:制造
CiteScore
7.50
自引率
16.00%
发文量
278
审稿时长
24 months
期刊介绍: The mission of Production and Operations Management is to serve as the flagship research journal in operations management in manufacturing and services. The journal publishes scientific research into the problems, interest, and concerns of managers who manage product and process design, operations, and supply chains. It covers all topics in product and process design, operations, and supply chain management and welcomes papers using any research paradigm.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信