A Unifying Framework for the Problem of Adjudicating Conflicting Claims

In a recent paper, Thomson and Yeh [Operators for the adjudication of conflicting claims, Journal of Economic Theory 143 (2008) 177-198] introduced the concept of operators on the space of rules for the problem of adjudicating conflicting claims. They focussed on three operators in order to uncover the structure of such a space. In this paper, we generalize their analysis upon presenting and studying a general family of operators inspired by three apparently unrelated approaches to the problem of adjudicating conflicting claims. We study the structural properties of this family and show, in particular, that most of Thomson and Yeh’s results are specific cases of our study.rationing; operators; baselines; composition; claims

Baseline Rationing

The standard problem of adjudicating conflicting claims describes a situation in which a given amount of a divisible good has to be allocated among agents who hold claims against it exceeding the available amount. This paper considers more general rationing problems in which, in addition to claims, there exist baselines (to be interpreted as objective entitlements, ideal targets, or past consumption) that might play an important role in the allocation process. The model we present is able to accommodate real-life rationing situations, ranging from resource allocation in the public health care sector to international protocols for the reduction of greenhouse emissions, or water distribution in drought periods. We define a family of allocation methods for such general rationing problems - called baseline rationing rules - and provide an axiomatic characterization for it. Any baseline rationing rule within the family is associated with a standard rule and we show that if the latter obeys some properties reflecting principles of impartiality, priority and solidarity, the former obeys them too.rationing; baselines; claims; priority; solidarity

A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health

We explore in this paper the implications of ethical and operational principles for the evaluation of population health. We formalize those principles as axioms for social preferences over distributions of health for a given population. We single out several focal population health evaluation functions, which represent social preferences, as a result of combinations of those axioms. Our results provide rationale for popular theories in health economics (such as the unweighted aggregation of QALYs or HYEs, and generalizations of the two, aimed to capture concerns for distributive justice) without resorting to controversial assumptions over individual preferences.population health, QALYs, HYEs, axioms

Elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism

Autism affects males more than females, giving rise to the idea that the influence of steroid hormones on early fetal brain development may be one important early biological risk factor. Utilizing the Danish Historic Birth Cohort and Danish Psychiatric Central Register, we identified all amniotic fluid samples of males born between 1993 and 1999 who later received ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision) diagnoses of autism, Asperger syndrome or PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified) (n=128) compared with matched typically developing controls. Concentration levels of Δ4 sex steroids (progesterone, 17α-hydroxy-progesterone, androstenedione and testosterone) and cortisol were measured with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. All hormones were positively associated with each other and principal component analysis confirmed that one generalized latent steroidogenic factor was driving much of the variation in the data. The autism group showed elevations across all hormones on this latent generalized steroidogenic factor (Cohen's d=0.37, P=0.0009) and this elevation was uniform across ICD-10 diagnostic label. These results provide the first direct evidence of elevated fetal steroidogenic activity in autism. Such elevations may be important as epigenetic fetal programming mechanisms and may interact with other important pathophysiological factors in autism

Seigniorage in the 21st Century: A Study of the Profits from Money Creation in the United Kingdom and Denmark

This paper develops a new theory of seigniorage suited to modern economies where the majority of money is created not by the state or central bank but by commercial banks and other monetary financial institutions via their lending activity. We identify four different forms of seigniorage that take account of the modern institutional separation between the state, the central bank, commercial banks and the non-bank private sector in terms of their identities as ‘money creators’ and ‘money users’. The new typology differentiates between seigniorage profits arising from interest rate spreads on stocks of created money and profits arising from flows of interest payments on newly created assets. We illustrate our theoretical framework with empirical data on commercial bank seigniorage and related variables in the United Kingdom and the Denmark over the past quarter century

Sharing the proceeds from a hierarchical venture

We consider the problem of distributing the proceeds generated from a joint venture in which the participating agents are hierarchically organized. We introduce and characterize a family of allocation rules where revenue ‘bubbles up’ in the hierarchy. The family is flexible enough to accommodate the no-transfer rule where no revenue bubbles up) and the full-transfer rule (where all the revenues bubble up to the top of the hierarchy). Intermediate rules within the family are reminiscent of popular incentive mechanisms for social mobilization or multi-level marketing