The Two Sisters and the Orange

Two sisters fought over the last orange. Their mother cut it in half. Fair, it seemed.

But one sister wanted the juice for a drink. The other wanted the peel for a cake.

The halved orange gave each sister half of what she wanted. If they had spoken first, one could have had all the juice, the other all the peel, and neither would have lost anything.

The mother’s solution was fair. But it was not Pareto optimal. A better arrangement existed where at least one person was better off and no one was worse off.