{ "model": { "rank": 11439, "code": "thing-q36829", "model_id": "vr.tr.pareto-efficiency", "name": "Pareto efficiency", "purpose": "Let an agent explain Pareto efficiency by definition, conditions, examples and limits, including that it says nothing about fairness.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Cross-cutting context", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "XCT", "domain": "XCT.REL", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q36829/", "tier": 2, "score": 42, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "Pareto frontier" ], "aliasCount": 1, "merged": 1, "knownIn": 42, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q36829", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q36829", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T09:00:24Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q36829", "registryId": "vr.tr.pareto-efficiency", "name": "Pareto efficiency", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "XCT.REL" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q36829/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.pareto-efficiency", "name": "Pareto efficiency", "purpose": "Let an agent explain Pareto efficiency by definition, conditions, examples and limits, including that it says nothing about fairness.", "definition": "A state of resource allocation in which no individual can be made better off without making at least one other individual worse off; the set of such allocations forms the Pareto frontier.", "what_it_is_for": "Evaluating allocations in economics, engineering and multi-objective optimisation.", "affordances": [ "test whether an allocation is Pareto efficient", "find the Pareto frontier", "explain Pareto improvements", "discuss equity separately" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "No one better off without someone worse off", "Many efficient allocations exist", "Silent on fairness", "Used in multi-objective optimisation" ], "appearance": "Not physical; shown as frontiers on graphs.", "visual_identification": [ "Pareto frontier curves", "Pareto improvements", "Pareto principle (80/20) is a different idea" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "Pareto improvement", "Pareto optimality", "Pareto frontier", "weak and strong Pareto efficiency" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "economic efficiency", "why": "category" }, { "relation": "is used in", "target": "welfare economics and optimisation", "why": "fields" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "equity", "why": "fairness" }, { "relation": "is confused with", "target": "Pareto principle", "why": "different concept" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Treating efficiency as fairness", "Confusing with the 80/20 rule", "Ignoring assumptions of models" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "concept", "name": "Concept", "description": "Definition.", "rationale": "Definition is precise.", "layers": [ { "id": "test", "name": "Test", "description": "Is it efficient.", "findings": [ { "id": "test-finding", "name": "Test", "description": "Efficiency test.", "questions": [ { "text": "Can anyone be made better off without harming someone else?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Under which assumptions?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "improvement", "name": "Improvement", "description": "Pareto improvement.", "findings": [ { "id": "improvement-finding", "name": "Improvement", "description": "Pareto improvement.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is this change a Pareto improvement?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Who gains and who loses?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "frontier", "name": "Frontier", "description": "Trade-offs.", "rationale": "Frontiers show trade-offs.", "layers": [ { "id": "find", "name": "Find", "description": "Computation.", "findings": [ { "id": "find-finding", "name": "Find", "description": "Frontier computation.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is the Pareto frontier found for these objectives?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "Which algorithm is used?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "choose", "name": "Choose", "description": "Selecting a point.", "findings": [ { "id": "choose-finding", "name": "Choose", "description": "Selection.", "questions": [ { "text": "How should a point on the frontier be chosen?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Which values guide the choice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "limits", "name": "Limits", "description": "What it does not say.", "rationale": "Efficiency is not fairness.", "layers": [ { "id": "equity", "name": "Equity", "description": "Fairness.", "findings": [ { "id": "equity-finding", "name": "Equity", "description": "Equity.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is the allocation fair as well as efficient?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Which fairness criterion is used?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "assumptions", "name": "Assumptions", "description": "Models.", "findings": [ { "id": "assumptions-finding", "name": "Assumptions", "description": "Assumptions.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which model assumptions does the conclusion rely on?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Do they hold here?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "senses", "name": "Senses", "description": "Disambiguation.", "rationale": "Pareto has several ideas.", "layers": [ { "id": "principle", "name": "Principle", "description": "80/20 rule.", "findings": [ { "id": "principle-finding", "name": "Principle", "description": "Pareto principle.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is the 80/20 Pareto principle meant instead?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "Which entry fits?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "teaching", "name": "Teaching", "description": "Examples.", "findings": [ { "id": "teaching-finding", "name": "Teaching", "description": "Teaching.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which simple example illustrates Pareto efficiency?", "kind": "action" }, { "text": "What misconceptions are common?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should frontier concepts be separate entries?", "How should optimisation uses be linked?", "How should the 80/20 principle be split off?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a Pareto efficiency, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain Pareto efficiency by definition, conditions, examples and limits, including that it says nothing about fairness.", "characteristics": { "substance": "abstract", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: Pareto frontier.", "1 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 42 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a Pareto efficiency, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "an abstraction with no physical instance", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "Pareto frontier" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 42 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 1 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one Pareto efficiency from another, and a Pareto efficiency from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a Pareto efficiency sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a Pareto efficiency from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a Pareto efficiency passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a Pareto efficiency between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a Pareto efficiency, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a Pareto efficiency is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What Pareto efficiency is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of Pareto efficiency are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is Pareto efficiency operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of Pareto efficiency and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of Pareto efficiency?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as Pareto efficiency?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a Pareto efficiency came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a Pareto efficiency and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a Pareto efficiency is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a Pareto efficiency, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a Pareto efficiency, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a Pareto efficiency is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 5, "layers": 10, "findings": 12, "questions": 32 } } } }