IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aerins/v8y2026i2p214-32.html

An Evolutionary Perspective on Updating Risk and Ambiguity Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Philipp Sadowski
  • Todd Sarver

Abstract

Using an evolutionary approach, we address the prominent tension in the literature that updating of ambiguity and nonexpected-utility preferences cannot, in general, be both dynamically consistent and consequentialist. Perhaps not surprisingly, evolutionary optimality requires dynamic consistency. The more subtle insight is the evolutionary optimality of systematic violations of consequentialism. We base our investigation on the model of adaptive preferences (Sadowski and Sarver 2024), which generalizes the model of Robson (1996) and nests variants of many well-known models in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Philipp Sadowski & Todd Sarver, 2026. "An Evolutionary Perspective on Updating Risk and Ambiguity Preferences," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 214-232, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aerins:v:8:y:2026:i:2:p:214-32
    DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20240698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20240698
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25375
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25376
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aeri.20240698?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    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:aea:aerins:v:8:y:2026:i:2:p:214-32. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.