IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lan/wpaper/144439430.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ensemble Prospectism

Author

Listed:
  • Kim Kaleva Kaivanto

Abstract

Incomplete preferences displaying ‘mildly sweetened’ structure are common, yet theoretically problematic. This paper examines the properties of the rankings induced by the set of all coherent completions of the mildly sweetened partial preference structure. Building on these properties, I propose an ensemble-based refinement of Hare’s (Analysis 70:237–247, 2010) prospectism criterion for rational choice when preferences are incomplete. Importantly, this ensemble-based refinement is immune to Peterson’s (Theory & Decision 78:451–456, 2015) weak money pump argument. Hence, ensemble prospectism ensures outcome rationality. Furthermore, by recognizing the structural isomorphism between mildly sweetened preference structures and Cover’s splitting rule in Blackwell’s Pick the Largest Number problem (Ann Math Stat 22:393–399, 1951), ensemble prospectism can be shown to yield better-than-even odds of selecting the expost higher-utility option – despite the absence of all-things-considered preferences ex ante.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim Kaleva Kaivanto, 2016. "Ensemble Prospectism," Working Papers 144439430, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:lan:wpaper:144439430
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/lums/economics/working-papers/LancasterWP2016_021.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sugden, Robert, 1991. "Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 751-785, July.
    2. Itzhak Gilboa & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & David Schmeidler, 2010. "Objective and Subjective Rationality in a Multiple Prior Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 755-770, March.
    3. Mandler, Michael, 2005. "Incomplete preferences and rational intransitivity of choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 255-277, February.
    4. Sen, Amartya K, 1973. "Behaviour and the Concept of Preference," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 40(159), pages 241-259, August.
    5. Michael Mandler, 2004. "Status quo maintenance reconsidered: changing or incomplete preferences?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(499), pages 518-535, November.
    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. Elena Cettolin & Arno Riedl, 2015. "Revealed Incomplete Preferences under Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 5359, CESifo.
    2. Cettolin, Elena & Riedl, Arno, 2019. "Revealed preferences under uncertainty: Incomplete preferences and preferences for randomization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 547-585.
    3. McClellon, Morgan, 2016. "Confidence models of incomplete preferences," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 30-34.
    4. Faro, José Heleno & Lefort, Jean-Philippe, 2019. "Dynamic objective and subjective rationality," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    5. Minardi, Stefania & Savochkin, Andrei, 2015. "Preferences with grades of indecisiveness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 300-331.
    6. Luca Zarri, 2007. "Happiness, Morality and Game Theory," Chapters, in: Luigino Bruni & Pier Luigi Porta (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Happiness, chapter 16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Leandro Nascimento, 2011. "Remarks on the consumer problem under incomplete preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 95-110, January.
    8. Simone Cerreia-Vioglio & Alfio Giarlotta & Salvatore Greco & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci, 2020. "Rational preference and rationalizable choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 69(1), pages 61-105, February.
    9. Quitz'e Valenzuela-Stookey, 2020. "Subjective Complexity Under Uncertainty," Papers 2006.01852, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    10. Eric Danan, 2010. "Randomization vs. Selection: How to Choose in the Absence of Preference?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(3), pages 503-518, March.
    11. Heller, Yuval, 2012. "Justifiable choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 375-390.
    12. Faro, José Heleno, 2015. "Variational Bewley preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 699-729.
    13. Mandler, Michael, 2009. "Indifference and incompleteness distinguished by rational trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 300-314, September.
    14. Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Cueva, Carlos & Gerasimou, Georgios, 2014. "Choice, Deferral and Consistency," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-17, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    15. Raphaël Giraud, 2005. "Anomalies de la théorie des préférences. Une interprétation et une proposition de formalisation," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(4), pages 829-854.
    16. Özgür Evren, 2012. "Scalarization Methods and Expected Multi-Utility Representations," Working Papers w0174, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    17. Georgios Gerasimou, 2018. "Indecisiveness, Undesirability and Overload Revealed Through Rational Choice Deferral," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(614), pages 2450-2479, September.
    18. Evren, Özgür, 2014. "Scalarization methods and expected multi-utility representations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 30-63.
    19. Koida, Nobuo, 2022. "Indecisiveness, preference for flexibility, and a unique subjective state space," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    20. Mandler, Michael, 2005. "Incomplete preferences and rational intransitivity of choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 255-277, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Prospectism; Refinement; Money pump; Outcome rationality; Ensemble method; Voting rules; Incomplete preferences; Mildly sweetened preferences; Cover rule; Hare; Peterson;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    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:lan:wpaper:144439430. 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: Giorgio Motta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delanuk.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.