We analyze the implications of several principles related to the concepts of equal, or prioritarian, entitlement to continued life. These principles, when modeled as axioms for the evaluation of health distributions, and combined with some basic structural axioms, provide several...

We analyze a general model of rationing in which agents have baselines, in addition to claims against the (insufficient) endowment of the good to be allocated. Many real-life problems fit this extended model (e.g., bankruptcy with prioritized claims, resource allocation in the public health care...

We analyze a model of resource allocation in which agents' abilities (to transform the resource into an interpersonally comparable outcome) and initial endowments may differ. We impose ethical and operational axioms in this model and characterize some allocation rules as a result of combining...

The ethic of 'priority' is a compromise between the extremely compensatory ethic of 'welfare equality' and the needs-blind ethic of 'income equality'. We propose an axiom of priority, and characterize resource-allocation rules that are impartial, prioritarian, and solidaristic. They comprise a...