IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v88y2020i3p1159-1195.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Randomization and Ambiguity Aversion

Author

Listed:
  • Shaowei Ke
  • Qi Zhang

Abstract

We propose a model of preferences in which the effect of randomization on ambiguity depends on how the unknown probability law is determined. We adopt the framework of Anscombe and Aumann (1963) and relax the axioms. In the resulting representation of the individual's preference, the individual has a collection of sets of priors M. She believes that before she moves, nature has chosen an unknown scenario (a set of priors) from M, and from that scenario, nature will choose a prior after she moves. The representation illustrates how randomization may partially eliminate the effect of ambiguity.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaowei Ke & Qi Zhang, 2020. "Randomization and Ambiguity Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1159-1195, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:88:y:2020:i:3:p:1159-1195
    DOI: 10.3982/ECTA15182
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA15182
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3982/ECTA15182?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gajdos, Thibault & Maurin, Eric, 2004. "Unequal uncertainties and uncertain inequalities: an axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(1), pages 93-118, May.
    2. Marc Fleurbaey, 2010. "Assessing Risky Social Situations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 649-680, August.
    3. Simone Cerreia‐Vioglio & David Dillenberger & Pietro Ortoleva, 2015. "Cautious Expected Utility and the Certainty Effect," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 693-728, March.
    4. Paolo Ghirardato & Massimo Marinacci, 2001. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Separation of Utility and Beliefs," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 864-890, November.
    5. Cosmin Ilut & Matthias Kehrig & Martin Schneider, 2018. "Slow to Hire, Quick to Fire: Employment Dynamics with Asymmetric Responses to News," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(5), pages 2011-2071.
    6. Dubra, Juan & Maccheroni, Fabio & Ok, Efe A., 2004. "Expected utility theory without the completeness axiom," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 118-133, March.
    7. Bose, Subir & Daripa, Arup, 2009. "A dynamic mechanism and surplus extraction under ambiguity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 2084-2114, September.
    8. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 2010. "Wanting Robustness in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 20, pages 1097-1157, Elsevier.
    9. Luciano I. Castro & Zhiwei Liu & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2017. "Ambiguous implementation: the partition model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 233-261, January.
    10. Kota Saito, 2015. "Preferences for Flexibility and Randomization under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(3), pages 1246-1271, March.
    11. Frick, Mira & Iijima, Ryota & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2019. "Boolean Representations of Preferences under Ambiguity," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 173, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    12. Gabriel Carroll, 2017. "Robustness and Separation in Multidimensional Screening," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 453-488, March.
    13. Dirk Bergemann & Karl Schlag, 2012. "Robust Monopoly Pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 13, pages 417-441, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    15. Dirk Bergemann & Karl H. Schlag, 2012. "Pricing Without Priors," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Robust Mechanism Design The Role of Private Information and Higher Order Beliefs, chapter 12, pages 405-415, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    17. Lehrer, Ehud & Teper, Roee, 2011. "Justifiable preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 762-774, March.
    18. , G. & , & ,, 2007. "Coarse contingencies and ambiguity," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(4), December.
    19. Adam Dominiak & Wendelin Schnedler, 2011. "Attitudes toward uncertainty and randomization: an experimental study," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(2), pages 289-312, October.
    20. Linhart, P. B. & Radner, R., 1989. "Minimax-regret strategies for bargaining over several variables," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 152-178, June.
    21. Kota Saito, 2013. "Social Preferences under Risk: Equality of Opportunity versus Equality of Outcome," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 3084-3101, December.
    22. Kyoungwon Seo, 2009. "Ambiguity and Second-Order Belief," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1575-1605, September.
    23. Wolitzky, Alexander, 2016. "Mechanism design with maxmin agents: theory and an application to bilateral trade," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    24. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    25. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    26. Juan Dubra & Fabio Maccheroni & Efe A. Ok, 2004. "Expected Utility Without the Completeness Axiom," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm404, Yale School of Management.
    27. Bade, Sophie, 2015. "Randomization devices and the elicitation of ambiguity-averse preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 221-235.
    28. David Easley & Maureen O'Hara & Liyan Yang, 2014. "Opaque Trading, Disclosure, and Asset Prices: Implications for Hedge Fund Regulation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 1190-1237.
    29. Howard Raiffa, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms: Comment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 690-694.
    30. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    31. De Castro, Luciano & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2018. "Uncertainty, efficiency and incentive compatibility: Ambiguity solves the conflict between efficiency and incentive compatibility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 678-707.
    32. de Castro, Luciano I. & Liu, Zhiwei & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2017. "Implementation under ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 20-33.
    33. Rothschild, Michael & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1970. "Increasing risk: I. A definition," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 225-243, September.
    34. Gabriel Carroll, 2015. "Robustness and Linear Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 536-563, February.
    35. Carrasco, Vinicius & Farinha Luz, Vitor & Kos, Nenad & Messner, Matthias & Monteiro, Paulo & Moreira, Humberto, 2018. "Optimal selling mechanisms under moment conditions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 245-279.
    36. Marciano Siniscalchi, 2009. "Vector Expected Utility and Attitudes Toward Variation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 801-855, May.
    37. Marina Agranov & Pietro Ortoleva, 2017. "Stochastic Choice and Preferences for Randomization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(1), pages 40-68.
    38. Machina, Mark J, 1985. "Stochastic Choice Functions Generated from Deterministic Preferences over Lotteries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(379), pages 575-594, September.
    39. Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Kim C. Border, 2006. "Infinite Dimensional Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-29587-7, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yoram Halevy & Emre Ozdenoren, 2022. "Uncertainty and compound lotteries: calibration," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(2), pages 373-395, September.
    2. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Experimental elicitation of ambiguity attitude using the random incentive system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1002-1023, June.
    3. Norio Takeoka & Takashi Ui, 2021. "Imprecise Information and Second-Order Beliefs," Working Papers on Central Bank Communication 037, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    4. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Randomize at Your Own Risk: On the Observability of Ambiguity Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1085-1107, May.
    5. Christoph Kuzmics & Brian W. Rogers & Xiannong Zhang, 2023. "Randomization advice and ambiguity aversion," Graz Economics Papers 2023-01, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    6. Song, Yangwei, 2023. "Approximate Bayesian implementation and exact maxmin implementation: An equivalence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 56-87.
    7. Kambhampati, Ashwin, 2023. "Randomization is optimal in the robust principal-agent problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    8. Calford, Evan M., 2021. "Mixed strategies and preference for randomization in games with ambiguity averse agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    9. Zhiwei Liu & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2021. "Persuasion in an asymmetric information economy: a justification of Wald’s maxmin preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 72(3), pages 801-833, October.
    10. Soheil Ghili & Peter Klibanoff, 2021. "If It Is Surely Better, Do It More? Implications for Preferences Under Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7619-7636, December.
    11. Christian Ewerhart & Sheng Li, 2020. "Imposing choice on the uninformed: the case of dynamic currency conversion," ECON - Working Papers 345, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised May 2023.
    12. Bade, Sophie, 2022. "Dynamic semi-consistency," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 117-126.
    13. Sarah Auster & Christian Kellner, 2023. "Timing Decisions Under Model Uncertainty," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_460, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    14. Liu, Zhiwei & Song, Xinxi & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2020. "Randomization under ambiguity: Efficiency and incentive compatibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-11.
    15. Zhiwei Liu & Nicholas C. Yannelis, 2022. "Mixed strategy implementation under ambiguity," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 10(1), pages 167-181, May.
    16. Tang, Rui & Zhang, Mu, 2021. "Maxmin implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    17. Sarah Auster & Christian Kellner, 2023. "Timing Decisions under Model Uncertainty," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 252, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    18. Michael Greinecker & Christoph Kuzmics, 2022. "Limit Orders and Knightian Uncertainty," Papers 2208.10804, arXiv.org.
    19. Song, Yangwei, 2022. "Approximate Bayesian Implementation and Exact Maxmin Implementation: An Equivalence," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 362, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    20. Seiji TAKANASHI, 2021. "Ex post fairness and ex ante fairness in social preferences under risk," Discussion papers e-20-006, Graduate School of Economics , Kyoto University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ghirardato, Paolo & Pennesi, Daniele, 2020. "A general theory of subjective mixtures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    2. Evren, Özgür, 2019. "Recursive non-expected utility: Connecting ambiguity attitudes to risk preferences and the level of ambiguity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 285-307.
    3. Madhav Chandrasekher & Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2022. "Dual‐Self Representations of Ambiguity Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1029-1061, May.
    4. Andrew J. Keith & Darryl K. Ahner, 2021. "A survey of decision making and optimization under uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 300(2), pages 319-353, May.
    5. Nascimento, Leandro & Riella, Gil, 2011. "A class of incomplete and ambiguity averse preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 728-750, March.
    6. Stefan Trautmann & Peter P. Wakker, 2018. "Making the Anscombe-Aumann approach to ambiguity suitable for descriptive applications," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 83-116, February.
    7. Jewitt, Ian & Mukerji, Sujoy, 2017. "Ordering ambiguous acts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 213-267.
    8. Song, Yangwei, 2018. "Efficient Implementation with Interdependent Valuations and Maxmin Agents," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 92, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    9. Tang, Rui & Zhang, Mu, 2021. "Maxmin implementation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    10. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Experimental elicitation of ambiguity attitude using the random incentive system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1002-1023, June.
    11. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2019. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2180, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    12. Peter Klibanoff & Sujoy Mukerji & Kyoungwon Seo, 2014. "Perceived Ambiguity and Relevant Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(5), pages 1945-1978, September.
    13. Heller, Yuval, 2012. "Justifiable choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 375-390.
    14. Faro, José Heleno, 2015. "Variational Bewley preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 699-729.
    15. Christoph Kuzmics & Brian W. Rogers & Xiannong Zhang, 2019. "Is Ellsberg behavior evidence of ambiguity aversion?," Graz Economics Papers 2019-07, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    16. Liu, Zhiwei & Song, Xinxi & Yannelis, Nicholas C., 2020. "Randomization under ambiguity: Efficiency and incentive compatibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 1-11.
    17. Robert G. Chambers & Tigran Melkonyan & John Quiggin, 2022. "Incomplete preferences, willingness to pay, and willingness to accept," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(3), pages 727-761, October.
    18. Patrick Schmidt, 2019. "Eliciting ambiguity with mixing bets," Papers 1902.07447, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    19. Song, Yangwei, 2018. "Efficient implementation with interdependent valuations and maxmin agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 693-726.
    20. Baillon, Aurélien & Bleichrodt, Han & Li, Chen & Wakker, Peter P., 2021. "Belief hedges: Measuring ambiguity for all events and all models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:88:y:2020:i:3:p:1159-1195. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.