The surplus procedure is a fair division

Fair division

Fair division, also known as the cake-cutting problem, is the problem of dividing a resource in such a way that all recipients believe that they have received a fair amount...

 protocol for dividing goods in a way that achieves proportional equitability

Equity (economics)

Equity is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly as to taxation or welfare economics. More specifically it may refer to equal life chances regardless of identity, to provide all citizens with a basic minimum of income/goods/services or to increase funds and commitment for...

. It can be generalized to more than 2 people and is strategyproof

Strategyproof

In game theory, an asymmetric game where players have private information is said to be strategyproof if there is no incentive for any of the players to lie about or hide their private information from the other players....

. For 3 or more people it is not always possible to achieve a division that is both equitabile and envy-free

Envy-free

In mathematical sociology and especially game theory, envy-free is a property of certain fair division algorithms for a divisible heterogeneous good over which different players may have different preferences....

.

The surplus procedure was devised by Steven J. Brams

Steven Brams

Steven J. Brams is a game theorist and political scientist at the New York University Department of Politics. Brams is best known for using the techniques of game theory and public choice to research voting systems and fair division. He is one of the independent discoverers of approval voting...

, Michael A. Jones, and Christian Klamler in 2006.

Criticisms of the paper

There have been a few criticisms of aspects of the paper. In effect the paper should cite a weaker form of Pareto optimality and suppose the measures are always strictly positive.