scholarly journals Strategyproof Choice of Social Acts

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (2) ◽  
pp. 596-627
Author(s):  
Eric Bahel ◽  
Yves Sprumont
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Choice Function ◽  
Social Choice Function ◽  
Subjective Expected Utility ◽  
Control Rights ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Social Acts ◽  
States Of Nature ◽  
Utility Preferences

We model uncertain social prospects as acts mapping states of nature to (social ) outcomes. A social choice function (or SCF ) assigns an act to each profile of subjective expected utility preferences over acts. An SCF is strategyproof if no agent ever has an incentive to misrepresent her beliefs about the states of nature or her valuation of the outcomes. It is unanimous if it picks the feasible act that all agents find best whenever such an act exists. We offer a characterization of the class of strategyproof and unanimous SCFs in two settings. In the setting where all acts are feasible, the chosen act must yield the favorite outcome of some ( possibly different) agent in every state of nature. The set of states in which an agent’s favorite outcome is selected may vary with the reported belief profile; it is the union of all states assigned to her by a collection of constant, bilaterally dictatorial, or bilaterally consensual assignment rules. In a setting where each state of nature defines a possibly different subset of available outcomes, bilaterally dictatorial or consensual rules can only be used to assign control rights over states characterized by identical sets of available outcomes. (JEL D71, D81, R53)

scholarly journals Risk, Ambiguity, and the Rank-Dependence Axioms

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 385-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J Machina
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Subjective Expected Utility ◽  
Choquet Expected Utility ◽  
Risk Ambiguity ◽  
Rank Dependence ◽  
Nonseparable Models ◽  
Utility Preferences

Choice problems in the spirit of Ellsberg (1961) suggest that rank-dependent (“Choquet expected utility”) preferences over subjective gambles might be subject to the same difficulties that Ellsberg's earlier examples posed for subjective expected utility. These difficulties stem from event-separability properties that rank-dependent preferences partially retain from expected utility, and suggest that nonseparable models of preferences might be better at capturing features of behavior that lead to these paradoxes. (JEL D81)

Reasonable Care under Uncertainty

2019 ◽  
pp. 74-86
Author(s):  
Charles F. Manski
Keyword(s):  
State Space ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Rational Expectations ◽  
Decision Criterion ◽  
The State ◽  
Minimax Regret ◽  
Subjective Expected Utility ◽  
Reasonable Care ◽  
States Of Nature

This chapter develops decision-theoretic principles for reasonable care under uncertainty. It discusses some reasonable ways to choose among undominated actions. When addressing this issue, decision theorists have distinguished three primary situations regarding information that a decision maker may or may not have beyond specification of the state space: decisions with rational expectations, maximization of subjective expected utility, and decisions under ambiguity. When making a choice under ambiguity, a reasonable way to act is to use a decision criterion that achieves adequate performance in all states of nature. There are multiple ways to formalize this idea. The two most commonly studied are the maximin and minimax-regret (MR) criteria.

A Comment on Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alec Sandroni ◽  
Alvaro Sandroni
Keyword(s):  
Social Choice ◽  
Choice Function ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Social Choice Function ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Impossibility Theorem ◽  
Preference Order ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Choice Functions ◽  
Preference Orders

AbstractArrow (1950) famously showed the impossibility of aggregating individual preference orders into a social preference order (together with basic desiderata). This paper shows that it is possible to aggregate individual choice functions, that satisfy almost any condition weaker than WARP, into a social choice function that satisfy the same condition (and also Arrow’s desiderata).

The Paradoxes of Allais and Ellsberg

1986 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Levi
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Numerical Indicator ◽  
Charles Peirce ◽  
Oriented Approach

In The Enterprise of Knowledge (Levi, 1980a), I proposed a general theory of rational choice which I intended as a characterization of a prescriptive theory of ideal rationality. A cardinal tenet of this theory is that assessments of expected value or expected utility in the Bayesian sense may not be representable by a numerical indicator or indeed induce an ordering of feasible options in a context of deliberation. My reasons for taking this position are related to my commitment to the inquiry-oriented approach to human knowledge and valuation favored by the American pragmatists, Charles Peirce and John Dewey. A feature of any acceptable view of inquiry ought to be that during an inquiry points under dispute ought to be kept in suspense pending resolution through inquiry.

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