We conduct an analysis of the “efficiency gap” using tools from economic theory and find serious flaws in the measure. In particular, we show that the efficiency gap contains an peculiar form of cost benefit analysis which is hard to defend, that the recommendations for the use of the...

We develop observable restrictions of well-known theories of bargaining over money. We suppose that we observe a finite data set of bargaining outcomes, including data on allocations and disagreement points, but no information on utility functions. We ask when a given theory could generate the...

We generalize the standard revealed preference exercise in economics, and prove a sufficient condition under which the revealed preference formulation of an economic theory has universal implications and when these implications can be recursively enumerated. We apply our theorem to two theories...

We investigate a normative theory of incomplete preferences in the context of preliminary screening procedures. We introduce a theory of ranking in the presence of objectively incomparable marginal contributions (apples and oranges). Our theory recommends benchmarking, a method under which an...

We introduce an ordinal model of efficiency measurement. Our primitive is a notion of e ciency that is comparative, but not cardinal or absolute. In this framework, we postulate axioms that we believe an ordinal efficiency measure should satisfy. Primary among these are choice consistency and...

We investigate the results of Kreps (1979), dropping his completeness axiom. As an added generalization, we work on arbitrary lattices, rather than a lattice of sets. We show that one of the properties of Kreps is intimately tied with representation via a closure operator. That is, a preference...

We introduce the first family of district compactness measures that can incorporate a wide range of internal geographic features. The measures in this family are the probability that a district contains an admissible path between a randomly selected pair of people. The measure can account for...