The proportional solution for rights problems (Q1111490)

The paper ranks among the attempts to build up a sociologically acceptable axiomatic theory of optimal allocation of amounts (like net worth, estates, taxes etc.) according to the claims of several subjects. The author mentions a lot of possible axioms, part of them new. He studies logical relations of these axioms and tries to characterize solutions satisfying several combinations of them. To do this, he defines the solutions in the form of vector functions and shows that in many cases such a function satisfies a given set of axioms iff it belongs to a specified class of functions that may be expressed explicitely. This enables one to prove that the proportional solution is the only optimal in many situations.