Description: How to Divide When There Isn't Enough develops a rigorous yet accessible presentation of the state-of-the-art for the adjudication of conflicting claims and the theory of taxation. It covers all aspects one may wish to know about claims problems: the most important rules, the most important axioms, and how these two sets are related. More generally, it also serves as an introduction to the modern theory of economic design, which in the last twenty years has revolutionized many areas of economics, generating a wide range of applicable allocations rules that have improved people's lives in many ways. In developing the theory, the book employs a variety of techniques that will appeal to both experts and non-experts. Compiling decades of research into a single framework, William Thomson provides numerous applications that will open a large number of avenues for future research.
Brief description: William Thomson is the Elmer Milliman Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester, New York. He is the author of several books including A Guide for the Young Economist (2011) which has appeared in four translations, and over one hundred articles. In 2001, he won the University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching at the University of Rochester. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, the Society for Economic Theory, and the Game Theory Society.
Review Quotes: 'The design of rationing rules has inspired for nearly forty years a fascinating intellectual edifice of axiomatic postulates and mathematical results, reviewed here by the premiere author of that literature. Readers will recognize, or discover, William Thomson's superb pedagogical talent in a text that is comprehensive, self-contained, and luminously clear.' Hervé Moulin, Donald J. Robertson Chair of Economics, University of Glasgow