Decision Making and Equilibrium under Uncertainty

2020 ◽  
pp. 269-302
Author(s):  
Robert G. Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Minimum Principle ◽  
Distance Functions ◽  
Incomplete Preferences ◽  
Choice Under Uncertainty ◽  
Financial Portfolio

Rational choice under uncertainty for individuals with incomplete preferences is examined for three choice environments: the standard financial portfolio model, producer choice in the absence of financial markets, and producer choice in the presence of financial markets. Each problem is analyzed using distance functions and the zero-maximum (zero-minimum) principle. General equilibrium is analyzed using the zero-maximum (zero-minimum) principle and related to equilibrium representation in a nonstochastic setting. Choice under uncertainty for individuals with complete preferences is examined

scholarly journals Publicity and Common Commitment to Believe

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. G. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Standard Analysis ◽  
Joint Intention ◽  
Normative Role

AbstractInformation can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions.

Altruismus, Moralität und Vertrauen

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Braun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Complete Information ◽  
Individual Rationality ◽  
Social Efficiency ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
Choice Approach

AbstractSuccessful trust-relations exist if the trustee reciprocates in accordance with his/her promises to the trustor’s unilateral cooperation. Using a parametric rational choice approach, Coleman shows that an egoist without a moral conscience may place trust in another unmoral egoist. Consequently, successful trust-relations between those actors are possible if strategic considerations play no role for individual decision-making. This paper focusses on such considerations for the emergence of those relations, given complete information (in the sense of common knowledge) of the players. Generally, trust-relations are hard to establish if unmoral egoists take into account their strategic interdependence. It is shown that two different motivations of the trustee, viz., altruism and morality, may suffice to overcome the characteristic conflict between individual rationality and social efficiency in situations with strategically deciding actors.

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