A New Approach for Bounding Awards in Bankruptcy Problems

The solution for the "Contested Garment Problem" proposed in the BabylonicTalmud, one of the most important sources of inspiration for solving situations where demand overcomes supply of some resources, suggests that each agent should receive at least some part of the available amount when facing these situations. Thisidea has been underlied the theoretical analysis of bankruptcy problems from its beginning (O'Neill, 1982) to present day (Dominguez and Thomsom, 2006). In this context, starting from the fact that a society establishes its own set of "Commonly Accepted Equity Principles", we propose a new award bound by providing each agent her minimum amount according to all the admissible bankruptcy rules for such a society. Moreover, we analyze the recursive application of this new bound, since it will not exhaust the resources, in general.