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Ellsberg Paradox
In decision theory, the Ellsberg paradox (or Ellsberg's paradox) is a paradox in which people's decisions are inconsistent with subjective expected utility theory. John Maynard Keynes published a version of the paradox in 1921. Daniel Ellsberg popularized the paradox in his 1961 paper, "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms". It is generally taken to be evidence of ambiguity aversion, in which a person tends to prefer choices with quantifiable risks over those with unknown, incalculable risks. Ellsberg's findings indicate that choices with an underlying level of risk are favored in instances where the likelihood of risk is clear, rather than instances in which the likelihood of risk is unknown. A decision-maker will overwhelmingly favor a choice with a transparent likelihood of risk, even in instances where the unknown alternative will likely produce greater utility. When offered choices with varying risk, people prefer choices with calculable risk, even when those choices ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decision Theory
Decision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability theory, probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probabilities, probability to model how individuals would behave Rationality, rationally under uncertainty. It differs from the Cognitive science, cognitive and Behavioural sciences, behavioral sciences in that it is mainly Prescriptive economics, prescriptive and concerned with identifying optimal decision, optimal decisions for a rational agent, rather than Descriptive economics, describing how people actually make decisions. Despite this, the field is important to the study of real human behavior by Social science, social scientists, as it lays the foundations to Mathematical model, mathematically model and analyze individuals in fields such as sociology, economics, criminology, cognitive science, moral philosophy and political science. History The roots of decision theory lie in probability theory, developed by Blai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayesian Probability
Bayesian probability ( or ) is an interpretation of the concept of probability, in which, instead of frequency or propensity of some phenomenon, probability is interpreted as reasonable expectation representing a state of knowledge or as quantification of a personal belief. The Bayesian interpretation of probability can be seen as an extension of propositional logic that enables reasoning with hypotheses; that is, with propositions whose truth or falsity is unknown. In the Bayesian view, a probability is assigned to a hypothesis, whereas under frequentist inference, a hypothesis is typically tested without being assigned a probability. Bayesian probability belongs to the category of evidential probabilities; to evaluate the probability of a hypothesis, the Bayesian probabilist specifies a prior probability. This, in turn, is then updated to a posterior probability in the light of new, relevant data (evidence). The Bayesian interpretation provides a standard set of procedur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Econometric Society
The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools in the practice of econometrics. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. It was founded on December 29, 1930, at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Its first president was Irving Fisher. As of 2014, there are about 700 elected fellows of the Econometric Society, making it one of the most prevalent research affiliations. New fellows are elected each year by the current fellows. The sixteen founding members were Ragnar Frisch, Charles F. Roos, Joseph A. Schumpeter, Harold Hotelling, Henry Schultz, Karl Menger, Edwin B. Wilson, Frederick C. Mills, William F. Ogburn, J. Harvey Rogers, Malcolm C. Rorty, Carl Snyder, Walter A. Shewhart, Øystein Ore, Ingvar Wedervang and Norbert Wiener. The Econometric Society sponsors the economics academic journal ''Econometrica ''Econometrica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the Cold War space race, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the U.S.–Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, and national health care. RAND originated as "Project RAND" (from the phrase "research and development") in the post-war period immediately after World War II. The U.S. Army Air Forces established Project RAND with the objective of investigating long-range planning of future weapons. Douglas Aircraft Company was granted a contract to research intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later evolved into RAND, and expanded its research into civilian fields suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Harvard was founded and authorized by the Massachusetts General Court, the governing legislature of colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. While never formally affiliated with any denomination, Harvard trained Congregational clergy until its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized in the 18th century. By the 19th century, Harvard emerged as the most prominent academic and cultural institution among the Boston elite. Following the American Civil War, under Harvard president Charles William Eliot's long tenure from 1869 to 1909, Harvard developed multiple professional schools, which transfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allais Paradox
The Allais paradox is a choice problem designed by to show an inconsistency of actual observed choices with the predictions of expected utility theory. The Allais paradox demonstrates that individuals rarely make rational decisions consistently when required to do so immediately. The independence axiom of expected utility theory, which requires that the preferences of an individual should not change when altering two lotteries by equal proportions, was proven to be violated by the paradox. Statement of the problem The Allais paradox arises when comparing participants' choices in two different experiments, each of which consists of a choice between two gambles, A and B. The payoffs for each gamble in each experiment are as follows: Several studies involving hypothetical and small monetary payoffs, and recently involving health outcomes, have supported the assertion that when presented with a choice between 1A and 1B, most people would choose 1A. Likewise, when presented with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Schmeidler
David Schmeidler (; 1939 – 17 March 2022) was an Israeli mathematician and economic theorist. He was a Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the Ohio State University. Biography David Schmeidler was born in 1939 in Kraków, Poland. He spent the war years in Russia and moved back to Poland at the end of the war and to Israel in 1949. From 1960 to 1969 he studied mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (BSc, MSc, and PhD), the advanced degrees under the supervision of Robert Aumann. He visited the Catholic University of Louvain and University of California at Berkeley before joining Tel-Aviv University in 1971, holding professorships in statistics, economics, and management. He held a part-time position as professor of economics at the Ohio State University since 1987. Schmeidler died on 17 March 2022. Main contributions Schmeidler's early contributions were in game theory and general equilibrium theory. He suggested a new approach to solving cooperati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Itzhak Gilboa
Itzhak Gilboa (Hebrew: יצחק גלבוע; born February 3, 1963, in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli economist with contributions in decision theory. After obtaining his BA in Mathematics and Economics from Tel Aviv University, he earned his Ph.D. in 1987 under the supervision of David Schmeidler. He currently holds professorship positions at HEC Paris and Reichman University. His work include the theory of Maxmin Expected Utility with David Schmeidler. This theory explains individual attitudes towards ambiguity that are consistent with the Ellsberg paradox In decision theory, the Ellsberg paradox (or Ellsberg's paradox) is a paradox in which people's decisions are inconsistent with subjective expected utility theory. John Maynard Keynes published a version of the paradox in 1921. Daniel Ellsberg .... Research and publications * I. Gilboa. ''Making Better Decisions: Decision Theory in Practice.'' Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. . * Ỉ. Gilboa ''Theory of decisi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expected Utility Hypothesis
The expected utility hypothesis is a foundational assumption in mathematical economics concerning decision making under uncertainty. It postulates that rational agents maximize utility, meaning the subjective desirability of their actions. Rational choice theory, a cornerstone of microeconomics, builds this postulate to model aggregate social behaviour. The expected utility hypothesis states an agent chooses between risky prospects by comparing expected utility values (i.e., the weighted sum of adding the respective utility values of payoffs multiplied by their probabilities). The summarised formula for expected utility is U(p)=\sum u(x_k)p_k where p_k is the probability that outcome indexed by k with payoff x_k is realized, and function ''u'' expresses the utility of each respective payoff. Graphically the curvature of the u function captures the agent's risk attitude. For example, imagine you’re offered a choice between receiving $50 for sure, or flipping a coin to win $100 i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice modeling refers to the use of decision theory (the theory of rational choice) as a set of guidelines to help understand economic and social behavior. The theory tries to approximate, predict, or mathematically model human behavior by analyzing the behavior of a rational actor facing the same costs and benefits.Gary Browning, Abigail Halcli, Frank Webster (2000). ''Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present'', London: Sage Publications. Rational choice models are most closely associated with economics, where mathematical analysis of behavior is standard. However, they are widely used throughout the social sciences, and are commonly applied to cognitive science, criminology, political science, and sociology. Overview The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual actors will collectively produce aggregate social behaviour. The theory also assumes that individuals have preferences out of available choice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subadditivity
In mathematics, subadditivity is a property of a function that states, roughly, that evaluating the function for the sum of two elements of the domain always returns something less than or equal to the sum of the function's values at each element. There are numerous examples of subadditive functions in various areas of mathematics, particularly norms and square roots. Additive maps are special cases of subadditive functions. Definitions A subadditive function is a function f \colon A \to B, having a domain ''A'' and an ordered codomain ''B'' that are both closed under addition, with the following property: \forall x, y \in A, f(x+y)\leq f(x)+f(y). An example is the square root function, having the non-negative real numbers as domain and codomain: since \forall x, y \geq 0 we have: \sqrt\leq \sqrt+\sqrt. A sequence \left \_ is called subadditive if it satisfies the inequality a_\leq a_n+a_m for all ''m'' and ''n''. This is a special case of subadditive function, if a sequ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choquet Expected Utility
A Choquet integral is a subadditive or superadditive integral created by the French mathematician Gustave Choquet in 1953. It was initially used in statistical mechanics and potential theory, but found its way into decision theory in the 1980s, where it is used as a way of measuring the expected utility of an uncertain event. It is applied specifically to membership functions and capacities. In imprecise probability theory, the Choquet integral is also used to calculate the lower expectation induced by a 2-monotone lower probability, or the upper expectation induced by a 2-alternating upper probability. Using the Choquet integral to denote the expected utility of belief functions measured with capacities is a way to reconcile the Ellsberg paradox and the Allais paradox. Multiobjective optimization problems seek Pareto optimal solutions, but the Pareto set of such solutions can be extremely large, especially with multiple objectives. To manage this, optimization often focus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
