Jorge Nieto

On fair allocations and monetary compensations

SummaryIn this paper we study fair division problems with the special feature that there exists only one transferable good that everyone likes. This good will be used to compensate some individuals for their differences in other non-transferable resources (like talents or handicaps). In this context we test the traditional no-envy solution and we verify that: 1) its ethical content can be a matter of discussion, and 2) frequently it does not select a non-empty set of allocations. We propose an extension of this criterion that partially solves the existence problem while also retaining the main ethical properties of the preceding solution.

Ranking opportunity sets: An approach based on the preference for flexibility

Abstract. We describe a criterion to evaluate subsets of a finite set of alternatives which are considered as opportunity sets. The axioms for set comparison are motivated within the preference for flexibility framework. We assume the preference over the universal set of alternatives to be made of two disjoint binary relations. The result is the axiomatic characterization of a procedure which is formally similar to the leximax ordering, but in our case it incorporates the presence of some uncertainty about the decision-maker final tastes.

The lexicographic egalitarian solution on economic environments

This paper considers solutions to distribution problems defined on economic environments. It shows that there is a unique resource-egalitarian and symmetric solution that proposes always Pareto optimal allocations and satisfies Inidivual Restricted Monotonicity; this property requires the poor people of the society to be strictly better-off when social resources increase and the initial outcome is a welfare unequal position. That unique solution is the lexicographic extension of the maxmin criterion.

Set comparisons in a general domain: the Indirect Utility Criterion

Abstract The problem of extending a preference relation on a set to its power set is considered. We interpret the classical Indirect Utility Criterion as the extreme opposite, in terms of freedom of choice considerations, of the well-known Cardinality-based Criterion introduced by Pattanaik and Xu, 1990. This paper proposes axiomatic characterizations for suitable extensions of the Indirect Utility Criterion when the basic set of alternatives is uncountable and the preference over this set allows for a continuous utility representation.