IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v141y2008i1p68-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Representation and aggregation of preferences under uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Gajdos, T.
  • Tallon, J.-M.
  • Vergnaud, J.-C.

Abstract

We axiomatize in the Anscombe-Aumann setting a wide class of preferences called rank-dependent additive preferences that includes most known models of decision under uncertainty as well as state dependent versions of these models. We prove that aggregation is possible and necessarily linear if and only if (society's) preferences are uncertainty neutral. The latter means that society cannot have a non-neutral attitude toward uncertainty on a subclass of acts. A corollary to our theorem is that it is not possible to aggregate multiple prior agents, even when they all have the same set of priors. A number of ways to restore the possibility of aggregation are then discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Gajdos, T. & Tallon, J.-M. & Vergnaud, J.-C., 2008. "Representation and aggregation of preferences under uncertainty," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 68-99, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:141:y:2008:i:1:p:68-99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(07)00143-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Meyer, Bernard & Mongin, Philippe, 1995. "A note on affine aggregation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 177-183, February.
    2. Paolo Ghirardato & Massimo Marinacci, 2001. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Separation of Utility and Beliefs," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 864-890, November.
    3. Mongin, Philippe, 1998. "The paradox of the Bayesian experts and state-dependent utility theory," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 331-361, April.
    4. Itzhak Gilboa & Dov Samet & David Schmeidler, 2004. "Utilitarian Aggregation of Beliefs and Tastes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 932-938, August.
    5. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2005. "Certainty Independence and the Separation of Utility and Beliefs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 129-136, January.
    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. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2006. "Preference aggregation under uncertainty: Savage vs. Pareto," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 430-440, February.
    8. Mongin Philippe, 1995. "Consistent Bayesian Aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 313-351, August.
    9. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    10. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    11. Epstein, Larry G & Segal, Uzi, 1992. "Quadratic Social Welfare Functions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 691-712, August.
    12. Peter A. Diamond, 1967. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparison of Utility: Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75, pages 765-765.
    13. Charles Blackorby & David Donaldson & Philippe Mongin, 2004. "Social Aggregation Without the Expected Utility Hypothesis," Working Papers hal-00242932, HAL.
    14. F J Anscombe & R J Aumann, 2000. "A Definition of Subjective Probability," Levine's Working Paper Archive 7591, David K. Levine.
    15. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63, pages 309-309.
    16. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard J, 1979. "The Impossibility of Bayesian Group Decision Making with Separate Aggregation of Beliefs and Values," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(6), pages 1321-1336, 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. Zuber, Stéphane, 2016. "Harsanyi’s theorem without the sure-thing principle: On the consistent aggregation of Monotonic Bernoullian and Archimedean preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 78-83.
    2. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2006. "Preference aggregation under uncertainty: Savage vs. Pareto," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 430-440, February.
    3. Fleurbaey, Marc & Zuber, Stéphane, 2017. "Fair management of social risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 666-706.
    4. Crès, Hervé & Gilboa, Itzhak & Vieille, Nicolas, 2011. "Aggregation of multiple prior opinions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2563-2582.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iepso50rh is not listed on IDEAS
    6. McCarthy, David & Mikkola, Kalle & Thomas, Teruji, 2020. "Utilitarianism with and without expected utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 77-113.
    7. Federica Ceron & Vassili Vergopoulos, 2017. "Aggregation of Bayesian preferences: Unanimity vs Monotonicity," Post-Print halshs-01539444, HAL.
    8. Eric Danan & Thibault Gajdos & Brian Hill & Jean-Marc Tallon, 2016. "Robust Social Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(9), pages 2407-2425, September.
    9. Federica Ceron & Vassili Vergopoulos, 2017. "Aggregation of Bayesian preferences: Unanimity vs Monotonicity," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01539444, HAL.
    10. Federica Ceron & Vassili Vergopoulos, 2017. "Aggregation of Bayesian preferences: Unanimity vs Monotonicity," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 17028, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    11. Takashi Hayashi, 2019. "What Should Society Maximise Under Uncertainty?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 70(4), pages 446-478, December.
    12. Federica Ceron & Vassili Vergopoulos, 2019. "Aggregation of Bayesian preferences: unanimity vs monotonicity," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(3), pages 419-451, March.
    13. Takashi Hayashi & Michele Lombardi, 2019. "Fair social decision under uncertainty and belief disagreements," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 775-816, June.
    14. Thibault Gajdos & Jean-Marc Tallon & Jean-Christophe Vergnaud, 2005. "On the impossibility of preference aggregation under uncertainty," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00193578, HAL.
    15. Marc Fleurbaey, 2018. "Welfare economics, risk and uncertainty," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 5-40, February.
    16. McCarthy, David & Mikkola, Kalle & Thomas, Teruji, 2016. "Utilitarianism with and without expected utility," MPRA Paper 72578, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Philippe Mongin & Marcus Pivato, 2020. "Social preference under twofold uncertainty," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(3), pages 633-663, October.
    18. Xiangyu Qu, 2017. "Separate aggregation of beliefs and values under ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(2), pages 503-519, February.
    19. Mongin, Philippe & Pivato, Marcus, 2015. "Ranking multidimensional alternatives and uncertain prospects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 146-171.
    20. Sprumont, Yves, 2018. "Belief-weighted Nash aggregation of Savage preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 222-245.
    21. Takashi Hayashi, 2021. "Collective decision under ignorance," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 347-359, August.

    More about this item

    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:jetheo:v:141:y:2008:i:1:p:68-99. 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/inca/622869 .

    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.