THE TALMUD RULE AND THE SECUREMENT OF AGENTS? AWARDS

This paper provides a new characterization of the Talmud rule by means of a new property, called securement. This property says that any agent holding a feasible claim will get at least one nht of her claim, where n is the number of agents involved. We show that securement together with a weak version of path independence and the standard properties of self-duality and consistency characterize the Talmud rule.bankruptcy problems, Talmud rule, characterization results

AN EXPERIMENT ON BANKRUPTCY

This paper reports an experimental study on three well known solutions for bankruptcy problems, that is, the constrained equal-awards, the proportional and the constrained equal-losses rule. To do this, we first let subjects play three games designed such that the unique equilibrium outcome coincides with one of these three rules. Moreover, we also let subjects play an additional game, that has the property that all (and only) strategy profiles in which players unanimously agree on the same rule constitute a strict Nash equilibrium. While in the first three games subjects' play easily converges to the unique equilibrium rule, in the last game the proportional rule overwhelmingly prevails as a coordination device.

The axiomatic approach to the problem of sharing the revenue from bundled pricing

We explore in this paper the axiomatic approach to the problem of sharing the revenue from bundled pricing. We formalize two models for this problem on the grounds of two different informational bases. In both models, we provide axiomatic rationale for natural rules to solve the problem. We, nonetheless, obtain drastic differences under each scenario, which highlights the importance of setting the appropriate informational basis of the problem

A new analysis of a simple model of fair allocation

In a recent article, Fragnelli and Gagliardo [Fragnelli, V., Gagliardo, S., (2012). Cooperative models for allocating an object. Economics Letters 117, 227–229] propose several procedures to solve a basic problem of fair allocation. We scrutinize their proposal and contextualize it into recent developments of the literature on bankruptcy problems. Our analysis supports two of the procedures they propose; namely, the Shapley and Talmud rules

Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions

Standard models for the evaluation of population health, such as the so-called models of aggregate Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), or aggregate Healthy Years Equivalent (HYEs), are usually criticized on equity grounds. We provide in this paper normative justifications for alternative equity-sensitive models, such as the so-called models of multiplicative QALYs, multiplicative HYEs, and generalizations of the two. Our axiomatic approach assumes social preferences over distributions of individual health states experienced in a given period of time. It conveys informational simplicity, as it does not require information about individual preferences on health

Taxation and poverty

We explore the implications of four natural axioms in taxation: continuity (small changes in the data of a taxation problem should not lead to large changes in the tax allocation), equal treatment of equals (agents with the same pre-tax incomes pay equal taxes), consistency (the way in which a group allocates a tax burden is immune to secessions of taxpayers) and composition down (an increase in the tax burden is handled according to agents’ current post-tax incomes). The combination of the four axioms characterizes a large family of rules, which we call generalized equal-sacrifice rules, encompassing the so-called equal-sacrifice rules (such as the flat tax), as well as constrained equal-sacrifice rules (such as the head tax), and exogenous poverty-line rules (such as the leveling tax, and some of its possible compromises with the previous ones

Entitlement theory of justice and end-stat fairness in the allocation of gods

Robert Nozick allegedly introduced his liberal theory of private ownership as an objection to theories of end-state justice. Nevertheless, we show that, in a stylized framework for the allocation of goods in joint ventures, both approaches can be seen as complementary. More precisely, in such a context, self-ownership (the basis for Nozick's entitlement theory of justice) followed by voluntary transfer (Nozick's principle of just transfer) can lead to end-state fairness (as well as Pareto efficiency). Furthermore, under a certain solidarity condition, the only way to achieve end-state fairness, following Nozick's procedure, is to endorse an egalitarian rule for the initial assignment of rights

Fair allocation of disputed properties

We model problems of allocating disputed properties as generalized exchange economies. Therein, agents have preferences and claims over multiple goods, and the social endowment of each good may not be sufficient to satisfy all individual claims. We focus on market-based allocation rules that impose a two-step procedure: assignment of rights based on claims first and voluntary exchange based on the assigned rights afterward. We characterize three focal egalitarian rights-assignment rules that guarantee that the allocation rules are fair. We apply our results to problems of greenhouse gas emissions and contested water rights

The principal's dilemma.

A recurrent dilemma in team management is to select between a team-based and an individual based wage scheme. We explore such a dilemma in a simple model of production in teams, in which the team members may di?er in their e?ort choices and quali?cation. We show that, in spite of enhancing output as the basis for payment, a team-based wage scheme might be less pro?table for the principal than an individual-based wage scheme. We also highlight a deep misalignment between designing optimal (output-based) incentives for a team and treating its members impartially. Finally, upon introducing the possibility of liquidity constraints in our model, we provide rationale for the so-called ?rich get richer? hypothesis

Ranking Languages in the European Union

This article presents a stylized framework to rank languages in multilingual societies. We consider several ranking methods, reflecting principles such as minimal disenfranchisement, communicative benefits, or utilitarianism, as well as game-theory-based rankings referring to the Shapley Value. We use data from the Special Eurobarometer survey in order to apply these methods to rank languages within the European Union. Although the methods largely differ on their normative grounds, they lead to very close results