IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v247y2025ics0165176524006049.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A reflection on the reflection example

Author

Listed:
  • Blavatskyy, Pavlo

Abstract

Machina (2009) reflection example challenges Choquet expected utility, cumulative prospect theory, and many other well-known models of ambiguity aversion. This paper shows that the reflection example can be accommodated within a modified Choquet expected utility with one capacity for relatively ambiguous events and a different capacity—for relatively unambiguous events.

Suggested Citation

  • Blavatskyy, Pavlo, 2025. "A reflection on the reflection example," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:247:y:2025:i:c:s0165176524006049
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112120
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176524006049
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.112120?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.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier L’Haridon & Lætitia Placido, 2010. "Betting on Machina’s reflection example: an experiment on ambiguity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 375-393, September.
    2. Aurelien Baillon & Olivier L'Haridon & Laetitia Placido, 2011. "Ambiguity Models and the Machina Paradoxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1547-1560, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Zhang, Yu, 2022. "Subjective beliefs and ambiguity aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    5. Pavlo Blavatskyy, 2013. "A Simple Behavioral Characterization of Subjective Expected Utility," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(4), pages 932-940, August.
    6. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    7. Mark J. Machina, 2009. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Rank-Dependence Axioms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 385-392, March.
    8. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Aldo Rustichini, 2006. "Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1447-1498, November.
    9. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    10. Peter Klibanoff & Massimo Marinacci & Sujoy Mukerji, 2005. "A Smooth Model of Decision Making under Ambiguity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(6), pages 1849-1892, November.
    11. Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas J Sargent, 2014. "Robust Control and Model Uncertainty," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: UNCERTAINTY WITHIN ECONOMIC MODELS, chapter 5, pages 145-154, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Blavatskyy, Pavlo R., 2013. "Two examples of ambiguity aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 206-208.
    13. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    14. Mohammed Abdellaoui, 2000. "Parameter-Free Elicitation of Utility and Probability Weighting Functions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1497-1512, 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. Blavatskyy, Pavlo R., 2013. "Two examples of ambiguity aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 206-208.
    2. Adam Dominiak & Jean-Philippe Lefort, 2021. "Ambiguity and Probabilistic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4310-4326, July.
    3. Ying He, 2021. "Revisiting Ellsberg’s and Machina’s Paradoxes: A Two-Stage Evaluation Model Under Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6897-6914, November.
    4. 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.
    5. Keiran Sharpe, 2023. "On the Ellsberg and Machina paradoxes," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 95(4), pages 539-573, November.
    6. Christoph Bühren & Fabian Meier & Marco Pleßner, 2023. "Ambiguity aversion: bibliometric analysis and literature review of the last 60 years," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 495-525, June.
    7. Fan Wang, 2022. "Rank-Dependent Utility Under Multiple Priors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8166-8183, November.
    8. Junyi Chai & Zhiquan Weng & Wenbin Liu, 2021. "Behavioral Decision Making in Normative and Descriptive Views: A Critical Review of Literature," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-14, October.
    9. Diederik Aerts & Emmanuel Haven & Sandro Sozzo, 2018. "A proposal to extend expected utility in a quantum probabilistic framework," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 1079-1109, June.
    10. König-Kersting, Christian & Kops, Christopher & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2023. "A test of (weak) certainty independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    11. Ghirardato, Paolo & Siniscalchi, Marciano, 2018. "Risk sharing in the small and in the large," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 730-765.
    12. Jewitt, Ian & Mukerji, Sujoy, 2017. "Ordering ambiguous acts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 213-267.
    13. Enrico G. De Giorgi & David B. Brown & Melvyn Sim, 2010. "Dual representation of choice and aspirational preferences," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2010 2010-07, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    14. Aerts, Diederik & Geriente, Suzette & Moreira, Catarina & Sozzo, Sandro, 2018. "Testing ambiguity and Machina preferences within a quantum-theoretic framework for decision-making," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 176-185.
    15. Florian H. Schneider & Martin Schonger, 2019. "An Experimental Test of the Anscombe–Aumann Monotonicity Axiom," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1667-1677, April.
    16. Francesco Fabbri & Giulio Principi & Lorenzo Stanca, 2024. "Absolute and Relative Ambiguity Attitudes," Papers 2406.01343, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    17. Aurélien Baillon & Harris Schlesinger & Gijs van de Kuilen, 2018. "Measuring higher order ambiguity preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 21(2), pages 233-256, June.
    18. Andrew J. Keith & Darryl K. Ahner, 2021. "A survey of decision making and optimization under uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 300(2), pages 319-353, May.
    19. David Dillenberger & Uzi Segal, 2015. "Recursive Ambiguity And Machina'S Examples," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 55-61, February.
    20. ,, 2012. "The ex-ante aggregation of opinions under uncertainty," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(3), September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D89 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Other

    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:eee:ecolet:v:247:y:2025:i:c:s0165176524006049. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.