This paper reports an experimental study on three well-known solutions for problems of adjudicating con icting claims: the constrained equal-awards, the proportional, and the constrained equal-losses rules. We first let subjects play three games designed such that the unique equilibrium...

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 veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool of recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by appending information permitting objective comparisons among persons. We show that the veil-of-ignorance...

We establish the precise connections between progressive taxation and inequality reduction, in a setting where the level of tax revenue to be raised is endogenously fixed and tax schemes are balanced. We show that, in contrast with the traditional literature on taxation, the equivalence between...

We present a model of political competition, in a multi-dimensional policy space and with policy-oriented candidates, to analyze the problem of health care finance. In our model, health care is either financed publicly (by means of general taxation) or privately (by means of a copayment). The...

We study mechanisms to construct equal-opportunity policies for resource allocation. In our model agents enjoy welfare as a function of the effort they expend, and the amount of a socially provided resource they consume. Nevertheless, agents have interdependent allocations. As in the standard...

Progressivity, inequality reduction and merging-proofness are three wellknown axioms in taxation. We investigate implications of each of the three axioms through characterizations of several families of taxation rules and their logical relations. We also study the preservation of these axioms...

In this paper, we study the immunity of bankruptcy rules to manipulation via merging or splitting agents' claims. We focus on the TAL-family of bankruptcy rules (Moreno-Ternero & Villar, 2005), a one-parameter family encompassing three classical rules: the Talmud (T) rule, the constrained...

There exist congenital diseases that reduce newborns' potential opportunities. This reduction is sometimes alleviated if the congenital disease is early detected thanks to a newborn screening program. We propose an outcome measurement of newborn screening programs based on the opportunity gains...

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...