IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/21-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ever since Allais

Author

Listed:
  • Aluma Dembo

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Oxford)

  • Shachar Kariv

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

  • Matthew Polisson

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Bristol)

  • John Quah

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

The Allais critique of expected utility theory (EUT) has led to the development of theories of choice under risk that relax the independence axiom, but which adhere to the conventional axioms of ordering and monotonicity. Unlike many existing labora-tory experiments designed to test independence, our experiment systematically tests the entire set of axioms, providing much richer evidence against which EUT can be judged. Our within-subjects analysis is nonparametric, using only information about revealed preference relations in the individual-level data. For most subjects we ?nd that departures from independence are statistically signi?cant but minor relative to departures from ordering and/or monotonicity.

Suggested Citation

  • Aluma Dembo & Shachar Kariv & Matthew Polisson & John Quah, 2021. "Ever since Allais," IFS Working Papers W21/15, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:21/15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ifs.org.uk/uploads/WP202115-Ever-since-Allais.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diecidue, Enrico & Wakker, Peter P, 2001. "On the Intuition of Rank-Dependent Utility," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 281-298, November.
    2. Syngjoo Choi & Shachar Kariv & Wieland M?ller & Dan Silverman, 2014. "Who Is (More) Rational?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1518-1550, June.
    3. Varian, Hal R, 1982. "The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 945-973, July.
    4. Li, Jing & Dow, William H & Kariv, Shachar, 2017. "Social preferences of future physicians," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt5vw9g5tj, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    5. Segal, Uzi, 1990. "Two-Stage Lotteries without the Reduction Axiom," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(2), pages 349-377, March.
    6. Matthew Polisson & John K.-H. Quah & Ludovic Renou, 2020. "Revealed Preferences over Risk and Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(6), pages 1782-1820, June.
    7. Chambers,Christopher P. & Echenique,Federico, 2016. "Revealed Preference Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107087804.
    8. Raymond Fisman & Shachar Kariv & Daniel Markovits, 2007. "Individual Preferences for Giving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1858-1876, December.
    9. John Quiggin, 1990. "Stochastic Dominance in Regret Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 503-511.
    10. Yaari, Menahem E, 1987. "The Dual Theory of Choice under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(1), pages 95-115, January.
    11. Caplin, Andrew & Schotter, Andrew, 2008. "The Foundations of Positive and Normative Economics: A Handbook," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195328318, Decembrie.
    12. repec:ecj:econjl:v:122:y:2012:i::p:332-338 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Felix Kubler & Larry Selden & Xiao Wei, 2017. "What Are Asset Demand Tests of Expected Utility Really Testing?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(601), pages 784-808, May.
    14. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2002. "A Genuine Rank-Dependent Generalization of the Von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility Theorem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 717-736, March.
    15. Leandro S. Carvalho & Stephan Meier & Stephanie W. Wang, 2016. "Poverty and Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from Changes in Financial Resources at Payday," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(2), pages 260-284, February.
    16. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    17. John D. Hey & Chris Orme, 2018. "Investigating Generalizations Of Expected Utility Theory Using Experimental Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Experiments in Economics Decision Making and Markets, chapter 3, pages 63-98, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    18. Yoram Halevy & Dotan Persitz & Lanny Zrill, 2018. "Parametric Recoverability of Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1558-1593.
    19. Ian Crawford & Bram De Rock, 2014. "Empirical Revealed Preference," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 503-524, August.
    20. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, 2023. "Libertarian paternalism," Chapters, in: Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch (ed.), Research Handbook on Nudges and Society, chapter 1, pages 10-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Varian, Hal R., 1990. "Goodness-of-fit in optimizing models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 125-140.
    22. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    23. Dziewulski, Paweł, 2020. "Just-noticeable difference as a behavioural foundation of the critical cost-efficiency index," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    24. Felix Kubler & Larry Selden & Xiao Wei, 2014. "Asset Demand Based Tests of Expected Utility Maximization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(11), pages 3459-3480, November.
    25. Cox, James C, 1997. "On Testing the Utility Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1054-1078, July.
    26. repec:ecj:econjl:v:122:y:2012:i::p:295-304 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Varian, Hal R, 1988. "Estimating Risk Aversion from Arrow-Debreu Portfolio Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(4), pages 973-979, July.
    28. William T. Harbaugh & Kate Krause & Timothy R. Berry, 2001. "GARP for Kids: On the Development of Rational Choice Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1539-1545, December.
    29. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    30. Yusufcan Masatlioglu & Collin Raymond, 2016. "A Behavioral Analysis of Stochastic Reference Dependence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2760-2782, September.
    31. Chambers, Christopher & Echenique, Federico & Saito, Kota, 2016. "Testing theories of financial decision making," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt87f2z6cx, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    32. Harless, David W & Camerer, Colin F, 1994. "The Predictive Utility of Generalized Expected Utility Theories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1251-1289, November.
    33. Mattei, Aurelio, 2000. "Full-scale real tests of consumer behavior using experimental data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 487-497, December.
    34. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    35. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    36. Chris Starmer, 2000. "Developments in Non-expected Utility Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(2), pages 332-382, June.
    37. Subir Bose & Matthew Polisson & Ludovic Renou, 2012. "Ambiguity Revealed," Discussion Papers in Economics 12/07, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    38. David E. Bell, 1982. "Regret in Decision Making under Uncertainty," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(5), pages 961-981, October.
    39. Chambers, Christopher P. & Liu, Ce & Martinez, Seung-Keun, 2016. "A test for risk-averse expected utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 775-785.
    40. Green, Richard C. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1986. "Expected utility maximization and demand behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 313-323, April.
    41. David Ahn & Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2014. "Estimating ambiguity aversion in a portfolio choice experiment," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 195-223, July.
    42. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    43. Hiroki Nishimura & Efe A. Ok & John K.-H. Quah, 2017. "A Comprehensive Approach to Revealed Preference Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1239-1263, April.
    44. Drazen Prelec, 1998. "The Probability Weighting Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(3), pages 497-528, May.
    45. Hal R. Varian, 2012. "Revealed Preference and its Applications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 332-338, May.
    46. Afriat, S N, 1973. "On a System of Inequalities in Demand Analysis: An Extension of the Classical Method," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(2), pages 460-472, June.
    47. Frederic Vermeulen, 2012. "Foundations of Revealed Preference: Introduction," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 287-294, May.
    48. S. N. Afriat, 2012. "Afriat’s Theorem and the Index Number Problem," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 295-304, May.
    49. Sippel, Reinhard, 1997. "An Experiment on the Pure Theory of Consumer's Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(444), pages 1431-1444, September.
    50. Fisman, Raymond & Jakiela, Pamela & Kariv, Shachar, 2017. "Distributional preferences and political behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-10.
    51. K. J. Arrow, 1964. "The Role of Securities in the Optimal Allocation of Risk-bearing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 31(2), pages 91-96.
    52. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1987. "Testing for Regret and Disappointment in Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(388a), pages 118-129, Supplemen.
    53. Shachar Kariv & Dan Silverman, 2013. "An Old Measure of Decision-Making Quality Sheds New Light on Paternalism," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 169(1), pages 29-44, March.
    54. W. Erwin Diewert, 2012. "Afriat's Theorem and some Extensions to Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 305-331, May.
    55. Felix Kubler & Larry Selden & Xiao Wei, 2017. "What Are Asset Demand Tests of Expected Utility Really Testing?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(601), pages 784-808.
    56. repec:ecj:econjl:v:122:y:2012:i::p:305-331 is not listed on IDEAS
    57. Leandro Carvalho & Dan Silverman, 2019. "Complexity and Sophistication," NBER Working Papers 26036, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    58. W. E. Diewert, 1973. "Afriat and Revealed Preference Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 40(3), pages 419-425.
    59. Peter Wakker, 1993. "Savage's Axioms Usually Imply Violation of Strict Stochastic Dominance," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 487-493.
    60. Dekel, Eddie, 1986. "An axiomatic characterization of preferences under uncertainty: Weakening the independence axiom," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 304-318, December.
    61. James Andreoni & John Miller, 2002. "Giving According to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 737-753, March.
    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. Matthew Polisson & John Quah, 2022. "Rationalizability, Cost-Rationalizability, and Afriat's Efficiency Index," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 22/754, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. Georgios Gerasimou, 2021. "Towards Eliciting Weak or Incomplete Preferences in the Lab: A Model-Rich Approach," Papers 2111.14431, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.

    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. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Kariv, Shachar & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2023. "The development gap in economic rationality of future elites," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 866-878.
    2. Eileen Tipoe & Abi Adams & Ian Crawford, 2022. "Revealed preference analysis and bounded rationality [Consume now or later? Time inconsistency, collective choice and revealed preference]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(2), pages 313-332.
    3. Federico Echenique, 2020. "New Developments in Revealed Preference Theory: Decisions Under Risk, Uncertainty, and Intertemporal Choice," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 299-316, August.
    4. Dziewulski, Paweł, 2020. "Just-noticeable difference as a behavioural foundation of the critical cost-efficiency index," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    5. Pawel Dziewulski, 2021. "A comprehensive revealed preference approach to approximate utility maximisation," Working Paper Series 0621, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    6. Belianin, A., 2017. "Face to Face to Human Being: Achievements and Challenges of Behavioral Economics," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 166-175.
    7. Liang Zou, 2006. "An Alternative to Prospect Theory," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, May.
    8. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Olivier L’Haridon, 2013. "La rationalité à l'épreuve de l'économie comportementale," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 35-89.
    9. Thomas Epper & Helga Fehr-Duda, 2012. "The missing link: unifying risk taking and time discounting," ECON - Working Papers 096, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Oct 2018.
    10. Daniel R. Burghart, 2020. "The two faces of independence: betweenness and homotheticity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 567-593, May.
    11. Pawel Dziewulski, 2018. "Just-noticeable difference as a behavioural foundation of the critical cost-efficiency," Economics Series Working Papers 848, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. Wang, Jian & Iversen, Tor & Hennig-Schmidt, Heike & Godager, Geir, 2020. "Are patient-regarding preferences stable? Evidence from a laboratory experiment with physicians and medical students from different countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    13. Cappelen, Alexander W. & Kariv, Shachar & Sørensen, Erik Ø. & Tungodden, Bertil, 2014. "Is There a Development Gap in Rationality?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 8/2014, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    14. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2023. "Source and rank-dependent utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 949-981, May.
    15. David Ahn & Syngjoo Choi & Douglas Gale & Shachar Kariv, 2014. "Estimating ambiguity aversion in a portfolio choice experiment," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 195-223, July.
    16. Wakker, Peter P. & Zank, Horst, 2002. "A simple preference foundation of cumulative prospect theory with power utility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1253-1271, July.
    17. Matthew D. Rablen, 2023. "Loss Aversion, Risk Aversion, and the Shape of the Probability Weighting Function," Working Papers 2023013, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    18. Adrian Bruhin & Maha Manai & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2022. "Risk and rationality: The relative importance of probability weighting and choice set dependence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 139-184, October.
    19. Rablen, Matthew D., 2019. "Foundations of the Rank-Dependent Probability Weighting Function," IZA Discussion Papers 12701, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2022. "Source and Rank-dependent Utility," Post-Print hal-03924295, HAL.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ifs:ifsewp:21/15. 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: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.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.