Each company continually has to choose the projects in which to invest, among the numerous proposals submitted by company departments. Just a few projects among those put forward for funding can be actually accepted, due to the unavoidable discrepancy between available money and required investments. Though overall profit maximization could appear as the natural allocation goal, it is to be considered that such an allocation may eventually produce a rather unbalanced distribution of the overall budget, where some departments get most of it and others get a very small slice or no money at all. In this paper, we examine how the search for fairness in budget allocation impacts the overall profit, to assess whether a greater degree of satisfaction among departments can be achieved while pursuing profit maximization at the same time. We adopt a constrained knapsack model and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) as a measure of fairness, and perform a MonteCarlo simulation to measure the extent of profit sacrifice in the quest for fairness. We find that just a small sacrifice in profit is often needed to achieve a balanced distribution of the overall budget.

Naldi, M., Nicosia, G., Pacifici, A., Pferschy, U., Leder, B. (2017). A Simulation study of fairness-profit trade-off in project selection based on HHI and Knapsack models. In EMS 2016 - European modelling symposium 2016 - 2016 UKSim-AMSS 10th European Modelling Symposium (pp.85-90). IEEE [10.1109/EMS.2016.025].

A Simulation study of fairness-profit trade-off in project selection based on HHI and Knapsack models

NALDI, MAURIZIO;PACIFICI, ANDREA;
2017-01-01

Abstract

Each company continually has to choose the projects in which to invest, among the numerous proposals submitted by company departments. Just a few projects among those put forward for funding can be actually accepted, due to the unavoidable discrepancy between available money and required investments. Though overall profit maximization could appear as the natural allocation goal, it is to be considered that such an allocation may eventually produce a rather unbalanced distribution of the overall budget, where some departments get most of it and others get a very small slice or no money at all. In this paper, we examine how the search for fairness in budget allocation impacts the overall profit, to assess whether a greater degree of satisfaction among departments can be achieved while pursuing profit maximization at the same time. We adopt a constrained knapsack model and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) as a measure of fairness, and perform a MonteCarlo simulation to measure the extent of profit sacrifice in the quest for fairness. We find that just a small sacrifice in profit is often needed to achieve a balanced distribution of the overall budget.
UKSim-AMSS 10th European Modelling Symposium, EMS 2016
Pisa, Italy
November 28-30, 2016
10
Al-Dabass, D; Colla, V; Vannuci, M; Pantelous, A
Rilevanza internazionale
contributo
2017
Settore MAT/09 - RICERCA OPERATIVA
Settore ING-INF/05 - SISTEMI DI ELABORAZIONE DELLE INFORMAZIONI
Settore ING-IND/35 - INGEGNERIA ECONOMICO-GESTIONALE
English
Intervento a convegno
Naldi, M., Nicosia, G., Pacifici, A., Pferschy, U., Leder, B. (2017). A Simulation study of fairness-profit trade-off in project selection based on HHI and Knapsack models. In EMS 2016 - European modelling symposium 2016 - 2016 UKSim-AMSS 10th European Modelling Symposium (pp.85-90). IEEE [10.1109/EMS.2016.025].
Naldi, M; Nicosia, G; Pacifici, A; Pferschy, U; Leder, B
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2108/183578
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