We consider the problem of ranking sets of objects, the members of which are mutually compatible.Assuming that each object is either good or bad, we axiomatically characterize three cardinality-based rules which arise naturally in this dichotomous setting.They are what we call the symmetric...

AMS Classifications: 91A06; 91A10; 91A12

The classical literature (Pigou (1920), Coase (1960), Arrow (1970)) and the relatively recent studies (cf.Varian (1994)) associate the externality problem with efficiency.This paper focuses explicitly on the compensation problem in the context of externalities.To capture the features of...

By generalizing the standard solution for 2-person games into n-person cases, this paper develops a new solution concept for cooperative games: the consensus value.We characterize the consensus value as the unique function that satisfies efficiency, symmetry, the quasi dummy property and...

In this paper we present an axiomatic analysis of several ranking methods for tournaments. We find that two of them exhibit a very good behaviour with respect to the set of properties under consideration. One of them is the maximum likelihood ranking, the most common method in statistics and...