IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/mateco/v57y2015icp12-19.html

The structure of variational preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Cerreia-Vioglio, S.
  • Maccheroni, F.
  • Marinacci, M.
  • Rustichini, A.

Abstract

Maccheroni, Marinacci, and Rustichini (2006), in an Anscombe–Aumann framework, axiomatically characterize preferences that are represented by the variational utility functional V(f)=minp∈Δ{∫u(f)dp+c(p)}∀f∈F, where u is a utility function on outcomes and c is an index of uncertainty aversion. In this paper, for a given variational preference, we study the class C of functions c that represent V. Inter alia, we show that this set is fully characterized by a minimal and a maximal element, c⋆ and d⋆. The function c⋆, also identified by Maccheroni, Marinacci, and Rustichini (2006), fully characterizes the decision maker’s attitude toward uncertainty, while the novel function d⋆ characterizes the uncertainty perceived by the decision maker.

Suggested Citation

  • Cerreia-Vioglio, S. & Maccheroni, F. & Marinacci, M. & Rustichini, A., 2015. "The structure of variational preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 12-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:mateco:v:57:y:2015:i:c:p:12-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmateco.2015.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304406815000038
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmateco.2015.01.002?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Ghirardato & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2012. "Ambiguity in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2827-2847, November.
    2. 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.
    3. ,, 2016. "Objective rationality and uncertainty averse preferences," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    4. Cerreia-Vioglio, S. & Maccheroni, F. & Marinacci, M. & Montrucchio, L., 2011. "Uncertainty averse preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(4), pages 1275-1330, July.
    5. Hanany Eran & Klibanoff Peter, 2009. "Updating Ambiguity Averse Preferences," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-53, November.
    6. Simone Cerreia-Vioglio & Paolo Ghirardato & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2011. "Rational preferences under ambiguity," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 48(2), pages 341-375, October.
    7. Ghirardato, Paolo & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2004. "Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 133-173, October.
    8. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    9. Charalambos D. Aliprantis & Kim C. Border, 2006. "Infinite Dimensional Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-3-540-29587-7, January.
    10. Luca Rigotti & Chris Shannon & Tomasz Strzalecki, 2008. "Subjective Beliefs and ex ante Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(5), pages 1167-1190, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthias Lang, 2017. "First-Order and Second-Order Ambiguity Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 1254-1269, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Simone Cerreia-Vioglio & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci, 2015. "On the equality of Clarke-Rockafellar and Greenberg-Pierskalla differentials for monotone and quasiconcave functionals," Working Papers 561, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    4. Leo Kurata & Kensei Nakamura, 2025. "Reservation of Judgment and Robust Collective Decisions," Papers 2512.16240, arXiv.org.
    5. Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2024. "Uncertainty and climate change: The IPCC approach vs decision theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    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. André, Eric, 2016. "Crisp monetary acts in multiple-priors models of decision under ambiguity," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 153-161.
    2. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    3. Heo, Youngsoo, 2025. "Preference for mixture and local ambiguity reduction in nonconvex preferences," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    4. Eran Hanany & Peter Klibanoff & Sujoy Mukerji, 2020. "Incomplete Information Games with Ambiguity Averse Players," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 135-187, May.
    5. Madhav Chandrasekher & Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2022. "Dual‐Self Representations of Ambiguity Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1029-1061, May.
    6. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo & Montrucchio, Luigi, 2013. "Ambiguity and robust statistics," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 974-1049.
      • Simone Cerreia-Vioglio & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Luigi Montrucchio, 2011. "Ambiguity and Robust Statistics," Working Papers 382, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    7. Gumen, Anna & Savochkin, Andrei, 2013. "Dynamically stable preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(4), pages 1487-1508.
    8. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo & Montrucchio, Luigi, 2012. "Probabilistic sophistication, second order stochastic dominance and uncertainty aversion," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 271-283.
    9. Frick, Mira & Iijima, Ryota & Le Yaouanq, Yves, 2019. "Boolean Representations of Preferences under Ambiguity," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 173, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    10. Simone Cerreia-Vioglio & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci, 2015. "On the equality of Clarke-Rockafellar and Greenberg-Pierskalla differentials for monotone and quasiconcave functionals," Working Papers 561, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    11. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2019. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2180, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    12. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2022. "Ambiguity aversion and wealth effects," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    13. König-Kersting, Christian & Kops, Christopher & Trautmann, Stefan T., 2023. "A test of (weak) certainty independence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    14. Xiaoyu Cheng, 2020. "Ambiguous Persuasion: An Ex-Ante Formulation," Papers 2010.05376, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2025.
    15. Spyros Galanis, 2021. "Dynamic consistency, valuable information and subjective beliefs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1497, June.
    16. Massimo Marinacci & Giulio Principi & Lorenzo Stanca, 2023. "Recursive Preferences and Ambiguity Attitudes," Papers 2304.06830, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    17. Chiaki Hara, 2023. "Arrow-Pratt-Type Measure of Ambiguity Aversion," KIER Working Papers 1097, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    18. Matthias Lang, 2017. "First-Order and Second-Order Ambiguity Aversion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 1254-1269, April.
    19. Huang, Yi-Chieh & Tzeng, Larry Y. & Zhao, Lin, 2015. "Comparative ambiguity aversion and downside ambiguity aversion," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 257-269.
    20. Massimo Marinacci & Giulio Principi & Lorenzo Stanca, 2023. "Recursive Preferences and Ambiguity Attitudes," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 695 JEL Classification: C, Collegio Carlo Alberto.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:mateco:v:57:y:2015:i:c:p:12-19. 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/jmateco .

    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.