Parametric representation of preferences

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Al-Najjar, Nabil I.; De Castro, Luciano
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2013.12.006
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 642-667
• 关键词: decision making; uncertainty; parameters

摘要

A preference is invariant with respect to a set of transformations if the ranking of acts is unaffected by reshuffling the states under these transformations. For example, transformations may correspond to the set of finite permutations, or the shift in a dynamic choice model. Our main result is that any invariant preference must be parametric: there is a unique sufficient set of parameters such that the preference ranks acts according to their expected utility given the parameters. Parameters are characterized in terms of objective frequencies, and can thus be interpreted as objective probabilities. By contrast, uncertainty about parameters is subjective. The preferences for which the above results hold are only required to be reflexive, transitive, monotone, continuous, and mixture linear. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.