Signed excedance enumeration via determinants

We show a simple connection between determinants and signed-excedance enumeration of permutations. This gives us an alternate proof of a result of Mantaci about enumerating signed excedances in permutations. The connection also gives an alternate proof of a result of Mantaci and Rakotondrajao about enumerating signed excedances over derangements. Motivated by this connection, we define several excedance-like statistics on permutations and show interesting values for their signed enumerator. In some cases, we also obtain the signed excedance-like statistic enumerator with respect to positive integral weights. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.