Comments on: A Trivial Economics Question — Part 2

By: Karthick Krishnan

Karthick Krishnan — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 01:21:25 +0000

Firstly, it all depends on the nature and value of the object. If it is non-perishable and of high value, you could start a TRUST and fund the trust with the object X and make all three beneficiary. This would be a viable solution where you do not have to split the object X and do not have to feel bad of not giving it to the other two. The best part, if you want to give beyond X then you can always fund the trust with whatever you wish toâ€¦…
Hope it works ! ! ! ! I feel this as one of the best solutions……

By: Nitin

Nitin — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:19:34 +0000

Atanu,

No treatment of inheritence division is complete without considering Randy Waterhouse’s method (in Neal Stephenson’s Crytonomicon).

It’s a whole (irrelevant?) chapter in the book. Here’s a site that has some excerpts.

Valuation is multi-dimensional.

By: tejbir

tejbir — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:48:22 +0000

Not too much into economics so my first reaction to the second way of giving Rs.30 to each after selling it to A for Rs.90 under WP scenario, haven’t we made A value X at Rs.60 effectively?

By: Manu

Manu — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 23:52:51 +0000

Aside from information imperfection, the parties may not be equivalent in their ability to use X.

If one of the three parties was a successful builder, s/he could take X, make an amazing apartment building with 50 flats in it (assuming they also have the political connections to change zoning). Suddenly, instead of 90, X can be worth 1000 to this person.

They may be willing to pay 990 for X but is it fair to give 330 to the other two who have no role in making X worth 990?