Priority rules and other asymmetric rationing methods

Authors
Citation
H. Moulin, Priority rules and other asymmetric rationing methods, ECONOMETRIC, 68(3), 2000, pp. 643-684
Citations number
31
Categorie Soggetti
Economics
Journal title
ECONOMETRICA
ISSN journal
00129682 → ACNP
Volume
68
Issue
3
Year of publication
2000
Pages
643 - 684
Database
ISI
SICI code
0012-9682(200005)68:3<643:PRAOAR>2.0.ZU;2-N
Abstract
In a rationing problem, each agent demands a quantity of a certain commodit y and the available resources fall short of total demand. A rationing metho d solves this problem at every level of resources and individual demands. W e impose three axioms: Consistency-with respect to variations of the set of agents-Upper Composition and Lower Composition-with respect to variations of the available resources. In the model where the commodity comes in indivisible units, the three axio ms characterize the family of priority rules, where individual demands are met lexicographically according to an exogeneous ordering of the agents. In the (more familiar) model where the commodity is divisible, these three axioms plus Scale Invariance-independence of the measurement unit-character ize a rich family of methods. It contains exactly three symmetric methods, giving equal shares to equal demands: these are the familiar proportional, uniform gains, and uniform losses methods. The asymmetric methods in the fa mily partition the agents into priority classes; within each class, they us e either the proportional method or a weighted version of the uniform gains or uniform losses methods.