| Dissertation makes two contributions to the modeling of rights. The first deals with an abstract notion of individual rights. Rights are modeled using game forms, ethical structures which specify what each individual is allowed and not allowed to do. We analyze how different notions of individual liberty may be represented by different conditions that a game form needs to satisfy. We then discuss Sen's famous paradox of the Paretian liberal in the game theoretic framework. We show that even though it is possible to conceive of "minimal" liberties the exercise of which is not necessarily in conflict with the Pareto principle, Sen's impossibility result can be confirmed in its strongest form for rights related to "private matters.".;The second contribution deals with an economic notion of individual rights in the context of public goods provision. We develop conditions which guarantee active and passive rights for individuals to freely enter and exit the market. In the case of an indivisible and excludable public good, we characterize a family of "voluntary" strategyproof cost sharing rules (CSRs). We show that for such rules the same price must be charged to all individuals consuming the public good. An equivalent result is established imposing a weaker version of the non bossiness condition, that guarantees to individuals protection from the exercise of freedom by other agents. Finally, we provide a precise characterization of a class of anonymous voluntary strategyproof CSRs, of which Moulin's serial cost sharing rule is a special case. |
