IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jmi/articl/jmi-v7i1a1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Object-based unawareness: Theory and applications

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver J. Board

    (Paul | Weiss, USA)

  • Kim-Sau Chung

    (Department of Economics, Hong Kong Baptist University, China)

Abstract

In this paper and its companion paper, Board and Chung (2021), we provide foundations for a model of unawareness that can be used to distinguish between what an agent is unaware of and what she simply does not know. At an informal level, this distinction plays a key role in a number of recent papers such as Tirole (2009) and Chung and Fortnow (2007). Here we provide a set-theoretic (i.e., non-linguistic) version of our framework. We use our object-based unawareness structures to investigate two applications. The first application provides a justification for the contra proferentem doctrine of contract interpretation, under which ambiguous terms in a contract are construed against the drafter. Our second application examines speculative trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver J. Board & Kim-Sau Chung, 2022. "Object-based unawareness: Theory and applications," The Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design, Society for the Promotion of Mechanism and Institution Design, University of York, vol. 7(1), pages 1-43, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:jmi:articl:jmi-v7i1a1
    DOI: 10.22574/jmid.2022.12.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mechanism-design.org/arch/v007-1/p_01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22574/jmid.2022.12.001?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole, 2009. "Cognition and Incomplete Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 265-294, March.
    2. Samet, Dov, 1998. "Common Priors and Separation of Convex Sets," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 24(1-2), pages 172-174, July.
    3. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Unawareness, beliefs, and speculative trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 100-121.
    4. Filiz-Ozbay, Emel, 2012. "Incorporating unawareness into contract theory," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 181-194.
    5. Oliver J. Board & Kim-Sau Chung, 2021. "Object-based unawareness: Axioms," The Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design, Society for the Promotion of Mechanism and Institution Design, University of York, vol. 6(1), pages 1-36, December.
    6. Li, Jing, 2009. "Information structures with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 977-993, May.
    7. Blume, Andreas & Gneezy, Uri, 2010. "Cognitive forward induction and coordination without common knowledge: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 488-511, March.
    8. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2006. "Interactive unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 130(1), pages 78-94, September.
    9. Modica, Salvatore & Rustichini, Aldo, 1999. "Unawareness and Partitional Information Structures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 265-298, May.
    10. Morris, Stephen, 1995. "The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 227-253, October.
    11. Eddie Dekel & Barton L. Lipman & Aldo Rustichini, 1998. "Standard State-Space Models Preclude Unawareness," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 159-174, January.
    12. Faruk Gul, 1998. "A Comment on Aumann's Bayesian View," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 923-928, July.
    13. John Geanakoplos, 1989. "Game Theory Without Partitions, and Applications to Speculation and Consensus," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 914, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    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. Fukuda, Satoshi, 2021. "Unawareness without AU Introspection," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Galanis, Spyros, 2018. "Speculation under unawareness," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 598-615.
    3. Fiorini, Luciana C. & Rodrigues-Neto, José A., 2017. "Self-consistency, consistency and cycles in non-partitional knowledge models," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 11-21.
    4. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Unawareness, beliefs, and speculative trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 100-121.
    5. Heifetz, Aviad & Meier, Martin & Schipper, Burkhard C., 2013. "Unawareness, beliefs, and speculative trade," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 100-121.
    6. Gaia Belardinelli & Burkhard C. Schipper, 2023. "Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures," Working Papers 360, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    7. Oliver Board, 2008. "Object-Based Unawareness: Theory and Applications," Working Paper 378, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Mar 2009.
    8. Spyros Galanis, 2013. "Unawareness of theorems," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(1), pages 41-73, January.
    9. Ying-Ju Chen & Xiaojian Zhao, 2013. "Solution Concepts of Principal-Agent Models with Unawareness of Actions," Games, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-24, August.
    10. Auster, Sarah, 2013. "Asymmetric awareness and moral hazard," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 503-521.
    11. Burkhard Schipper, 2013. "Awareness-dependent subjective expected utility," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 42(3), pages 725-753, August.
    12. Burkhard Schipper, 2010. "Revealed Unawareness," Working Papers 303, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    13. Zhao, Xiaojian, 2011. "Framing contingencies in contracts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 31-40, January.
    14. Blume, Andreas & Gneezy, Uri, 2010. "Cognitive forward induction and coordination without common knowledge: An experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 488-511, March.
    15. Antoine Dubus, 2017. "Asymmetric Awareness and Heterogeneous Agents," Working Papers hal-01521487, HAL.
    16. Sarah Auster, 2012. "Asymmetric Awareness and Moral Hazard," Economics Working Papers ECO2012/23, European University Institute.
    17. Karni, Edi & Vierø, Marie-Louise, 2017. "Awareness of unawareness: A theory of decision making in the face of ignorance," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 301-328.
    18. Spyros Galanis, 2011. "Syntactic foundations for unawareness of theorems," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(4), pages 593-614, October.
    19. Schipper, Burkhard C, 2011. "Preference-Based Unawareness," MPRA Paper 30221, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Gossner, O. & Tsakas, E., 2010. "A reasoning approach to introspection and unawareness," Research Memorandum 006, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unawareness; legal doctrine; no-trade theorem.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law

    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:jmi:articl:jmi-v7i1a1. 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: Paul Schweinzer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.