Trees and Decisions
Abstract
The traditional model of sequential decision making, for instance, in extensive form games, is a tree. Most texts de?ne a tree as a connected directed graph without loops and a distinguished node, called the root. But an abstract graph is not a domain for decision theory. Decision theory perceives of acts as functions from states to consequences. Sequential decisions, accordingly, get conceptualized by mappings from sets of states to sets of consequences. Thus, the question arises whether a natural de?nition of a tree can be given, where nodes are sets of states. We show that, indeed, trees can be de?ned as speci?c collections of sets. Without loss of generality the elements of these sets can be interpreted as representing plays. Therefore, the elements can serve as states and consequences at the same time.Download Info
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Paper provided by Institute for Advanced Studies in its series Economics Series with number 129.Length: 40 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2003
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ihs:ihsesp:129
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Related research
Keywords: Decision under uncertainty; Extensive form games; Trees;Other versions of this item:
- Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Klaus Ritzberger, 2005. "Trees and decisions," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 763-798, 06.
- Carlos Alós Ferrer & Klaus Ritzberger, 2002. "Trees and Decisions," Vienna Economics Papers 0304, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
- C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
- D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Alós-Ferrer, Carlos & Ritzberger, Klaus, 2008.
"Trees and extensive forms,"
Journal of Economic Theory,
Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 216-250, November.
- Carlos Alós-Ferrer & Klaus Ritzberger, 2005. "Trees and Extensive Forms," Vienna Economics Papers 0506, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
- Joseph Greenberg & Sudheer Gupta & Xiao Luo, 2009. "Mutually acceptable courses of action," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 91-112, July.
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