An egalitarian approach for the adjudication of conflicting claims

Abstract

This paper addresses the challenge of adjudicating conflicting claims by introducing a related reference point depending on the claims of agents. Egalitarian principles underpin many allocation rules, with the constrained equal awards (CEA) rule standing out as a notable example. Various other significant rules are examined through an egalitarian lens. The traditional model of adjudicating claims is enriched by incorporating an external baseline point. This study demonstrates that the CEA rule, alongside the CEL rule, the weighted CEA rule, the weighted CEL rule, the family of reverse Talmudic rules, and the entire class of CIC rules adhere to the same egalitarian criterion when a reference point is specified. However, not all allocation rules follow this criterion of equality; for instance, the Talmudic rule does not conform to it. As a second result, all the egalitarian rules are characterized by a properly defined quadratic optimization problem, as it was already known for the CEA rule..