Rationing problems with ex-ante conditions

•Paper proposes an extension of standard rationing problems or claims problems.•Agents are not only identified by their claims, but also by some ex-ante conditions.•Generalizations of the CEA rule and of the CEL rule are introduced.•Both generalized rules are axiomatically characterized.

An extension of the standard rationing model is introduced. Agents are not only identified by their respective claims to some amount of a scarce resource, but also by some exogenous ex-ante conditions (initial stock of resource or net worth of agents, for instance), other than claims. Within this framework, we define a generalization of the constrained equal awards rule and provide two different characterizations of this generalized rule. Finally, we use the corresponding dual properties to characterize a generalization of the constrained equal losses rule.