Application of AHP Method in Enforcement Procedures: The Case of Selling Specific Goods

The concept of specific goods is considered by the authors from the perspective of a particular attribute that makes ordinary goods specific. Specific goods are not intended for the broad market; they either have buyers or do not. Machine learning and artificial intelligence models can certainly be of help in studying the market, but what if the existing models cannot lead to concrete buyers? Economic theory suggests that in regular sales of goods, anyone is a potential buyer, even outside the target group. The same principle can be applied to the sale of specific goods. In the paper, the authors point out a possible way of thinking and provide a basis for training machine learning and artificial intelligence models in finding buyers of specific goods using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) mathematical method. The authors found a representative example of regular goods that became specific due to one or more attributes in the sales of former industrial facilities. To test the hypothesis, the authors utilized a database of completed sales conducted by a public enforcement officer. The authors’ initial assumption was that in the AHP method, an optimal number of appropriately ranked criteria can be developed to indicate buyers outside the target group for such specific goods based on the obtained results. The results and developed methodology can be further applied in training machine learning and artificial intelligence models in finding buyers.