IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cge/wacage/107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Characterizing Behavioral Decisions with Choice Data

Author

Listed:
  • Ghosal, Sayantan

    (University of Warwick)

  • Dalton, Patricio

    (Tilberg University)

Abstract

This paper provides an axiomatic characterization of choices in a setting where a decision-maker may not fully internalize all the consequences of her choices on herself. Such a departure from rationality, it turns out, is common across a variety of positive behavioral models and admits the standard rational choice model as a special case. We show that choice data satisfying (a) Sen’s axioms and fully characterize behavioral decisions, and (b) Sen’s axiom and fully characterize standard decision-making. In addition, we show that (a) it is possible to identify a minimal and a maximal set of psychological states using choice data alone, and (b) under specific choice scenarios, "revealed mistakes" can be inferred directly from choice data.

Suggested Citation

  • Ghosal, Sayantan & Dalton, Patricio, 2013. "Characterizing Behavioral Decisions with Choice Data," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 107, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/107.2013_ghosal.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2008. "How are preferences revealed?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1787-1794, August.
    2. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    3. Botond Kőszegi & Matthew Rabin, 2006. "A Model of Reference-Dependent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1133-1165.
    4. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2018. "Shrouded attributes, consumer myopia and information suppression in competitive markets," Chapters, in: Victor J. Tremblay & Elizabeth Schroeder & Carol Horton Tremblay (ed.), Handbook of Behavioral Industrial Organization, chapter 3, pages 40-74, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Peter P. Wakker & Rakesh Sarin, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 375-406.
    6. Dalton, Patricio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2008. "Behavioural Decisions and Welfare," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 834, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    7. Botond Kőszegi, 2010. "Utility from anticipation and personal equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 44(3), pages 415-444, September.
    8. B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Behavioral Welfare Economics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 267-319, 04-05.
    9. Juan D. Carrillo & Thomas Mariotti, 2000. "Strategic Ignorance as a Self-Disciplining Device," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 529-544.
    10. Mandler, Michael, 2005. "Incomplete preferences and rational intransitivity of choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 255-277, February.
    11. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2007. "Sequentially Rationalizable Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1824-1839, December.
    12. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Daisuke Nakajima & Erkut Y. Ozbay, 2012. "Revealed Attention," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2183-2205, August.
    13. Shafer, Wayne & Sonnenschein, Hugo, 1975. "Equilibrium in abstract economies without ordered preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 345-348, December.
    14. Patricio S. Dalton & Sayantan Ghosal & Anandi Mani, 2016. "Poverty and Aspirations Failure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 165-188, February.
    15. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2012. "Categorize Then Choose: Boundedly Rational Choice And Welfare," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(5), pages 1141-1165, October.
    16. Pollak, Robert A, 1978. "Endogenous Tastes in Demand and Welfare Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 374-379, May.
    17. Akerlof, George A & Dickens, William T, 1982. "The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 307-319, June.
    18. Loewenstein, George & Ubel, Peter A., 2008. "Hedonic adaptation and the role of decision and experience utility in public policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1795-1810, August.
    19. Heifetz Aviad & Minelli Enrico, 2015. "Aspiration Traps," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 125-142, July.
    20. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2006. "Optimal sin taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1825-1849, November.
    21. Milgrom, Paul & Shannon, Chris, 1994. "Monotone Comparative Statics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(1), pages 157-180, January.
    22. Jonathan Gruber & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2006. "Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), Happiness and Public Policy, chapter 6, pages 109-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    23. Bezalel Peleg & Menahem E. Yaari, 1973. "On the Existence of a Consistent Course of Action when Tastes are Changing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 391-401.
    24. B. Douglas Bernheim & Antonio Rangel, 2009. "Beyond Revealed Preference: Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 51-104.
    25. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2001. "Psychological Expected Utility Theory and Anticipatory Feelings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 55-79.
    26. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    27. Attila Ambrus & Kareen Rozen, 2015. "Rationalising Choice with Multi‐self Models," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1136-1156, June.
    28. von Weizsacker, Carl Christian, 1971. "Notes on endogenous change of tastes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 345-372, December.
    29. Anat Bracha & Donald J. Brown, 2007. "Affective Decision Making: A Behavioral Theory of Choice," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1633R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Apr 2009.
    30. Jonathan Shalev, 2000. "Loss aversion equilibrium," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 29(2), pages 269-287.
    31. Geanakoplos, John & Pearce, David & Stacchetti, Ennio, 1989. "Psychological games and sequential rationality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 60-79, March.
    32. Jose Apesteguia & Miguel A. Ballester, 2015. "A Measure of Rationality and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1278-1310.
    33. Richard J. Herrnstein & Drazen Prelec, 1991. "Melioration: A Theory of Distributed Choice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 137-156, Summer.
    34. Masatlioglu, Yusufcan & Ok, Efe A., 2005. "Rational choice with status quo bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 1-29, March.
    35. Yuval Salant & Ariel Rubinstein, 2008. "(A, f): Choice with Frames -super-1," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1287-1296.
    36. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2008. "How are preferences revealed?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1787-1794, August.
    37. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December.
    38. Ghosal, Sayantan, 2011. "Complementarity with complete but P-acyclic preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 120-122, September.
    39. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    40. Hammond, Peter J., 1976. "Endogenous tastes and stable long-run choice," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 329-340, October.
    41. Bergstrom, Theodore C., 1975. "Maximal elements of acyclic relations on compact sets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 403-404, June.
    42. Amartya K. Sen, 1971. "Choice Functions and Revealed Preference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 307-317.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dalton, Patricio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2018. "Self-fulfilling mistakes : Characterization and welfare," Other publications TiSEM 4ea1a236-5307-4b4b-b268-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Dalton, Patricio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2008. "Behavioural Decisions and Welfare," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 834, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    3. Dalton, P.S. & Ghosal, S., 2010. "Behavioral Decisions and Welfare (Replaces CentER DP 2010-22)," Discussion Paper 2010-143, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    4. Patricio S. Dalton & Sayantan Ghosal, 2011. "Behavioral Decisions and Policy," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 57(4), pages 560-580, December.
    5. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2015. "State dependent choice," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 45(2), pages 239-268, September.
    6. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    7. T. Hayashi & R. Jain & V. Korpela & M. Lombardi, 2023. "Behavioral strong implementation," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(4), pages 1257-1287, November.
    8. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Elchin Suleymanov, 2021. "Decision making within a product network," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(1), pages 185-209, February.
    9. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2012. "Behavioral Implementation," Working Papers 2012-6, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    10. , & ,, 2013. "Choice by iterative search," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(3), September.
    11. Mandler, Michael, 2014. "Indecisiveness in behavioral welfare economics," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 219-235.
    12. Geoffroy de Clippel, 2014. "Behavioral Implementation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 2975-3002, October.
    13. Apesteguia, Jose & Ballester, Miguel A., 2013. "Choice by sequential procedures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 90-99.
    14. Francesco Cerigioni, 2021. "Dual Decision Processes: Retrieving Preferences When Some Choices Are Automatic," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(6), pages 1667-1704.
    15. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2012. "Choice and individual welfare," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1818-1849.
    16. Barokas, Guy, 2019. "Choice theoretic foundation for libertarian paternalism: Reconciling the behavioral and libertarian approaches to welfare," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 62-73.
    17. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman, 2010. "How (Not) to Do Decision Theory," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 257-282, September.
    18. B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Behavioral Welfare Economics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 267-319, 04-05.
    19. FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2011. "Behavioral fair social choice," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011043, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    20. Georgios, Gerasimou, 2013. "A Behavioural Model of Choice in the Presence of Decision Conflict," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-25, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Behavioral Decisions; Revealed and Normative Preferences; Welfare; Axiomatic characterization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General

    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:cge:wacage:107. 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: Jane Snape (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.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.