The paper presents the problem of choosing the representatives in an assembly when the whole electoral region is subdivided into electoral districts. Because of the two dimensions, geographical (districts) and political (parties), the problem is called bi-apportionment. Often the allocation of...

An intricate web of claims and obligations ties together the balance sheets of a wide variety of financial institutions. Under the occurrence of default, these interbank claims generate externalities across institutions and possibly disseminate defaults and bankruptcy. Building on a simple model...

Ranking systems are becoming a fundamental tool in many areas, including the Web environment for ranking pages. PageRank, the most popular method, is based on the links stemming from a page and defined so as to be immune to their inflation, a property called intensity-invariance. This paper...

An unfunded Social Security system faces the major risk, sometimes referred to as "political risk", that future generations modify or even suppress the contributions. In order to account properly for this risk, the paper considers a political process in which the support to the system is asked...

This paper analyzes how integrated labor markets affect the financing of higher education. For this, we employ a general-equilibrium model with overlapping generations and individuals who differ in their abilities. At the first stage, governments can choose the quality of education and the...

Given a matrix p ≥ 0 what does it mean to say that a matrix f (of the same dimension), whose row and column sums must fall between specific limits, is "proportional to" p? This paper gives an axiomatic solution to this question in two distinct contexts. First, for any real "allocation" matrix...

This paper analyzes how integrated labor markets affect the financing of higher education. For this, we employ a general-equilibrium model with overlapping generations and individuals who differ in their abilities. At the first stage, governments can choose the quality of education and the...

The paper investigates the formation of information sharing communities. The environment is characterized by the anonymity of the contributors and users, as on the Web. Furthermore information exchange is limited to simple recommendations. When preferences differ, it is argued that a community...

The paper presents the problem of choosing the representatives in an assembly when the whole electoral region is subdivided into electoral districts. Because of the two dimensions, geographical (districts) and political (parties), the problem is called bi-apportionment. Often the allocation of...