Management Science · 1979 · 111 citations · 0 references
Mathematical ProgrammingEngineeringGame TheoryDelegation ProcessOperations ResearchManagementAlgorithmic Mechanism DesignSystems EngineeringCombinatorial OptimizationDecision TheoryMechanism DesignFair Resource AllocationUnique SetComputer ScienceMulti-agent Mechanism DesignUtility-driven ModelPreference AggregationIndividual Utility FunctionsDecision SciencePareto Optimal Set
A delegation process is proposed for setting the weights when a weighted sum of individual utility functions is used to make group decisions. Conditions under which a unique set of weights exist and methods for calculating these weights are obtained using the theory of Markov chains. It is shown that the Pareto optimal set at each step of delegation is a subset of the Pareto optimal set at the previous step.