What behavior can be explained using the hypothesis that the agent faces temptation but is otherwise a “standard rational agent”? In earlier work, Gul–Pesendorfer [2001] use a set betweenness axiom to restrict the set of preferences considered by Dekel, Lipman, and Rustichini [2001] to those explainable via temptation. We argue that set betweenness rules out plausible and interesting forms of temptation including some which may be important in applications. We propose a pair of alternative axioms called DFC, desire for commitment, and AIC, approximate improvements are chosen. DFC characterizes temptation as situations where given any set of alternatives, the agent prefers committing herself to some particular item from the set rather than leaving herself the flexibility of choosing later. AIC is based on the idea that if adding an option to a menu improves the menu, it is because that option is chosen under some circumstances. From this interpretation, the axiom concludes that if an improvement is worse (as a commitment) than some commitment from the menu, then the best commitment from the menu is strictly preferred to facing the menu. We show that these axioms characterize a natural generalization of the Gul–Pesendorfer representation.
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Paper provided by Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science in its series Discussion Papers with number
1423.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1423
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References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Manuel Amador & Ivan Werning & George-Marios Angeletos, 2003.
"Commitment Vs. Flexibility,"
NBER Working Papers
10151, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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