This paper provides an approach to poverty measurement that relies on the interpretation of poverty as a welfare loss. Our contribution is twofold. On the one hand, we analyse the relationship between individual and aggregate indicators, by introducing the notion of “distributive impact of...

In a recent article, Fragnelli and Gagliardo [Cooperative models for allocating an object, Economics Letters 117 (2012) 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...

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,...

Reliable empirical evidence about the effects of unemployment insurance benefits (UIB) on individuals’ labour market paths is crucial for designing appropriate labour market policies. In particular, medium and long-run effects of the UIB system can differ markedly from short-term impact when...

We introduce a new operator for general rationing problems in which, besides conflicting claims, individual baselines play an important role in the rationing process. The operator builds onto ideas of composition, which are not only frequent in rationing, but also in related problems such as...

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...

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...

In a model where individuals differ in both their health care needs and their lifestyle preferences, we study the fair provision of health care with fresh starts. Grounded on basic ethical principles, we axiomatically derive social preferences that allow us to make welfare assessments when...

Resource egalitarianism and welfare egalitarianism are two focal conceptions of distributive justice. We show in this paper that they share a solid common ground. To do so, we analyze a simple model of resource allocation in which agents’ abilities (to transform the resource into an...

Grade retention practices are at the forefront of the educational debate. In this paper, we use PISA 2009 data for Spain to measure the effect of grade retention on students’ achievement. One important problem when analyzing this question is that school outcomes and the propensity to repeat a...