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Efficiency, Equity and Fairness
in Travel Technology


Prof. David Bernstein
James Madison University

Computer Science Department
bernstdh@jmu.edu

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Motivation
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  • With Heterogeneous Populations:
    • Dissimilar people may have different access to technologies
    • Dissimilar people may be impacted differently by the same technology
  • With Homogeneous Populations:
    • Similar people may be treated differently by the same technology
Why Does this Matter?
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  • Public Sector Involvement:
    • The government plays an important role in many travel technologies and it should "act for the public good" (which may be difficult to define)
  • Acceptance by the Market:
    • Ignoring these issues may cause people to reject the technologies
  • Social Responsibility:
    • Societies may only be able to succeed if their members worry about these kinds of issues
Framework for Analysis
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  • Efficient Policies
    • Social welfare is increased (a utilitarian concept)
    • Kaldor-Hicks criterion
  • Equitable Policies
    • Nobody is worse off (an egalitarian concept)
    • Pareto criterion
  • Fair/Superfair Policies
    • People would rather have what they have than what others have
    • Baumol's envy criterion
Can You Think of Examples of the Following?
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  • Look Good but Actually Inefficient:
    • Technologies that you might think a priori would make things better, but actually make things worse
  • Efficient but Inequitable:
    • Technologies that do make people better off in total, but make some people worse off
  • Efficient and Equitable but Unfair:
    • Make people better off in total, make nobody worse off, but make some people envious
There's Always More to Learn
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