Pareto Improvement: A GRA Perspective

Pareto optimality refers to a benefit distribution that cannot be improved without lowering the benefit of at least one individual. Group role assignment (GRA) pursues an optimal role assignment from the team’s viewpoint and mainly considers the team performance. It is valuable to check whether an optimal assignment is consistent with the Pareto optimality. Otherwise, there would be discomforts in social development. In this article, we establish a model for simulating a resource/benefit distribution by using the environment–class, agent, role, group, and object (E-CARGO) model, which was developed by our previous work. To obtain a deep understanding of the Pareto optimality, we use a revised GRA model to check for possible Pareto improvement. This article contributes a unique and novel way to investigate economic or social phenomena with the E-CARGO and GRA model, provides further insight into the Pareto optimality from the perspective of role assignment, and confirms the feasibility of Pareto improvements. The proposed algorithm is verified using theoretical proofs and simulation experiments. Interesting findings are deduced and presented: 1) Pareto improvements do not exist when resources are insufficient and are feasible only when the number of provisions is larger than that of requests. 2) Pareto assignment exists if and only if we have sufficient people for production and sufficient resources for consumption. The defined Pareto GRA problem seems complex but we can solve it with a simple and efficient algorithm. 3) Overproduction is driven by not only individual requests but also the social requirement of Pareto improvements.