Characterizing Pareto Optimality: Introduction and Preliminary Ideas

We now turn our attention to characterizations of Pareto optimality. Suppose that P is a partition. How can we determine whether or not P is Pareto maximal or Pareto minimal? We have seen that P is Pareto maximal if and only if m(P) is on the outer Pareto boundary of the IPS and that P is Pareto minimal if and only if m(P) is on the inner Pareto boundary of the IPS. However, the relevant IPS is not always available to us. Our goal is to find other ways to make this determination. We begin by considering Pareto maximality.