We consider the problem of assigning agents to slots on a line, where only one agent can be served at a slot and each agent prefers to be served as close as possible to his target. Our focus is on aggregate gap minimizing methods, i.e., those that minimize the total gap between targets and...

In this paper we explore the implications of normative 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...

We develop an approach for making welfare comparisons between populations with multidimensional discrete well-being indicators observed at the micro level. The approach is rooted in the concept of multidimensional first order dominance. It assumes that, for each indicator, the levels can be...

In a recent paper, Thomson and Yeh [Thomson, W., Yeh, C.-H., 2008. Operators for the adjudication of conflicting claims. Journal of Economic Theory 143, 177–198] introduced the concept of operators on the space of rules for the problem of adjudicating conflicting claims. They focused on three...

Events that occur over a period of time can be described either as sequences of outcomes at discrete times or as functions of outcomes in an interval of time. This paper presents discounting models for events of the latter type. Conditions on preferences are shown to be satisfied if and only if...

A considerable literature seems to argue the use of person trade-offs to estimate the quality-adjustment factor in Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY) models. A similar practise is followed by the WHO to estimate the disability weights used in calculation of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY)...

This paper develops an ordinal method of comparison of multidimensional inequality. In our model, population distribution g is more unequal than f when the distributions have common median and can be obtained from f by one or more shifts in population density that increase inequality. For our...

Recent studies have tested the preference axioms of completeness and transitivity, and have detected other preference phenomena such as unstability, learning- and tiredness effects, ordering effects and dominance, in stated preference discrete choice experiments. However, it has not been...

The present paper considers rationing problems interpreted as e.g. bankruptcy problems or taxation problems. We demonstrate that among the continuous and order-preserving rationing methods, theproportional method is the only rationing method that preserves inequality in both gains and losses.