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A Bayesian Approach to Uncertainty Aversion

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Author Info
Vincent Feltkamp (Statistics Netherlands)
Yoram Halevy (University of British Columbia)

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Abstract

The Ellsberg paradox demonstrates that people's belief over uncertain events might not be representable by subjective probability. We argue that Uncertainty Aversion may be viewed as a case of "Rule Rationality''. This paradigm claims that people's decision making has evolved to simple rules that perform well in most regular environments. Such an environment consists of replicas of some basic singular circumstance. When the rule is applied to a singular environment, the behavior may seem paradoxical. We claim that the regular environment in which decisions under uncertainty take place, is described by one decision that spans multiple ambiguous risks, which are positively correlated. We show that when a risk averse individual has a Bayesian prior and uses a rule, which is optimal for the regular ambiguous environment, to evaluate a singular vague circumstance - his behavior will exhibit uncertainty aversion. Thus, the behavior predicted by Ellsberg may be explained within the Bayesian expected utility paradigm.

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Paper provided by Econometric Society in its series Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers with number 1125.

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Date of creation: 01 Aug 2000
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Handle: RePEc:ecm:wc2000:1125

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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  4. Ghirardato, Paolo & Klibanoff, Peter & Marinacci, Massimo, 1998. "Additivity with multiple priors," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 405-420, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Ross, Stephen A., 1999. "Adding Risks: Samuelson's Fallacy of Large Numbers Revisited," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(03), pages 323-339, September. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Halevy, Yoram & Ozdenoren, Emre, 2008. "Uncertainty and Compound Lotteries: Calibration," Micro Theory Working Papers yoram_halevy-2008-7, Microeconomics.ca Website, revised 17 Jun 2008. [Downloadable!]
  2. Rick Harbaugh, 2005. "Prospect Theory or Skill Signaling?," Working Papers 2005-06, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy. [Downloadable!]
  3. Alfred Müller & Marco Scarsini, 2002. "Even Risk-Averters may Love Risk," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 81-99, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Zvi Safra & Uzi Segal, 2005. "Are Universal Preferences Possible? Calibration Results for Non-Expected Utility Theories," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 633, Boston College Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Halevy, Yoram, 2005. "Ellsberg Revisited: an Experimental Study," Micro Theory Working Papers halevy-05-07-26-11-51-13, Microeconomics.ca Website, revised 07 Jun 2008. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Pierre Fleckinger, 2007. "On Multiagent Moral Hazard under Technological Uncertainty," Working Papers hal-00240716_v1, HAL. [Downloadable!]
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