Disputed land claims: A response to Weatherson and to bou-Habib and Olsaretti

In a paper published in this journal we proposed a method for resolving disputed land claims between two parties (Steiner and Wolff: 2003). In essence the proposal is to hold an auction between the disputants in which the land is given to the higher bidder, but the receipts of the auction to the under-bidder. We claimed that under such circumstances both parties can walk away happy: the higher bidder happy to pay the price bid for the land; the under-bidder happier to have the receipts of the auction when the alternative is to pay for the land at a higher price.