Rearrangements and Sequential Rank Order Dominance

Distributive analysis typically involves comparisons of distributions where individuals differ in more than just one attribute. In the particular case where there are two attributes and where the distribution of one of these two attributes is fixed, one can appeal to sequential rank order dominance for comparing distributions. We show that sequential rank order domination of one distribution over another implies that the dominating distribution can be obtained from the dominated one by means of a finite sequence of favourable permutations, and conversely. We provide two examples where favourable permutations prove to have interesting implications from a normative point of view.