Modelling effectiveness-equity trade-offs in public service delivery systems

Distributional equity is a particularly salient objective in public sector decision making, in general, and decision making concerning the delivery of public services such as education, libraries, sanitation, and public safety, in particular. In this paper two related bicriteria mathematical programming models are developed for identifying the trade-offs between overall output (effectiveness) and equity that result from alternative allocations of service resources among different service delivery sites (branches). The models developed here incorporate equity in a more satisfactory manner than have previous efforts. An illustrative application of the models to the allocation of new books among the branches of a public library system is presented.