An axiomatic characterization of some measures of unfairness
Abstract This paper deals with measuring the inequity that results when a group of buyers is charged the correct amount in total, but due to imperfect information on the part of the seller, there are overcharges and undercharges for various individuals in the group. Under certain natural axioms, the main one being an additive decomposition postulate, one arrives at a one parameter family of functions, analogous to that found for measuring income inequality. The usual differentiability and/or continuity assumptions present in many axiomatic characterizations of this type are removed.