1382. Balance and baselines: an impossibility theorem and a new axiomatisation of an additive scoring rule
Invited abstract in session TD-8: Session in honour of Theo Stewart, stream Multiple Criteria Decision Aiding.
Tuesday, 14:30-16:00Room: Clarendon SR 2.08
Authors (first author is the speaker)
| 1. | Alec Morton
|
| Management Science, University of Strathclyde | |
| 2. | Lars Østerdal
|
| Copenhagen Business School |
Abstract
A feature in many multicriteria problems is a preference for "balance" - an equal distribution of resources across stakeholders or conceptual categories. An excellent example of this phenomenon is Theo's case-study paper "A multi-criteria decision support system for R&D project selection" published in JORS in 1991. In this paper we present a normative exploration of the implications of this preference when baselines are uncertain or contested. We prove an impossibility theorem showing that if a decision maker is strictly outcome-based yet expresses a strict preference for balance over gains whatever the baseline, then a normative inconsistency arises. We then show that if the balance preference is weakened and combined with standard conditions (such as a weak Pareto principle and continuity), the only consistent aggregation rule is an additive one. Our results highlight a key theme of Theo's work: that deliberative decision making necessarily involves reconciling preferences intuitions "in the small" - over a fragment of the decision space - and "in the large" - over the whole of that space.
Keywords
- Multi-Objective Decision Making
Status: accepted
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