IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v12y2003i10p863-871.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing rank‐dependent utility theory for health outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Oliver

Abstract

Systematic violations of expected utility theory (EU) have been reported in the context of both money and health outcomes. Rank‐dependent utility theory (RDU) is currently the most popular and influential alternative theory of choice under circumstances of risk. This paper reports a test of the descriptive performance of RDU compared to EU in the context of health. When one of the options is certain, violations of EU that can be explained by RDU are found. When both options are risky, no evidence that RDU is a descriptive improvement over EU is found, though this finding may be due to the low power of the tests. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Oliver, 2003. "Testing rank‐dependent utility theory for health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(10), pages 863-871, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:10:p:863-871
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.769
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.769
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.769?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. Mark McCord & Richard de Neufville, 1986. ""Lottery Equivalents": Reduction of the Certainty Effect Problem in Utility Assessment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 56-60, January.
    2. Keller, L Robin, 1985. "Testing of the 'reduction of compound alternatives' principle," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 349-358.
    3. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    4. Camerer, Colin, 1992. "The rationality of prices and volume in experimental markets," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 237-272, March.
    5. 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.
    6. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto, 2000. "A Parameter-Free Elicitation of the Probability Weighting Function in Medical Decision Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1485-1496, November.
    7. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1999. "Nonlinear Decision Weights in Choice Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 74-85, January.
    8. H. Llewellyn-Thomas & H.J. Sutherland & R. Tibshirani & A. Ciampi & J.E. Till & N.F. Boyd, 1982. "The Measurement of Patients' Values in Medicine," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 2(4), pages 449-462, December.
    9. Conlisk, John, 1989. "Three Variants on the Allais Example," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 392-407, June.
    10. Wakker, Peter, 1996. "The sure-thing principle and the comonotonic sure-thing principle: An axiomatic analysis," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 213-227.
    11. Bleichrodt, Han & Quiggin, John, 1999. "Life-cycle preferences over consumption and health: when is cost-effectiveness analysis equivalent to cost-benefit analysis?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 681-708, December.
    12. Peter Wakker & Anne Stiggelbout, 1995. "Explaining Distortions in Utility Elicitation through the Rank-dependent Model for Risky Choices," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 15(2), pages 180-186, June.
    13. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1996. "Curvature of the Probability Weighting Function," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(12), pages 1676-1690, December.
    14. Fennema, Hein & Wakker, Peter, 1996. "A Test of Rank-Dependent Utility in the Context of Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 19-35, July.
    15. Bleichrodt, Han, 2001. "Probability Weighting in Choice under Risk: An Empirical Test," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 185-198, September.
    16. Hong, Chew Soo & Wakker, Peter, 1996. "The Comonotonic Sure-Thing Principle," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 5-27, January.
    17. Wakker, Peter & Erev, Ido & Weber, Elke U, 1994. "Comonotonic Independence: The Critical Test between Classical and Rank-Dependent Utility Theories," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 195-230, December.
    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. Valerie Seror, 2008. "Fitting observed and theoretical choices – women's choices about prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(5), pages 557-577, May.
    2. Shaw, W. Douglass & Woodward, Richard T., 2008. "Why environmental and resource economists should care about non-expected utility models," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 66-89, January.
    3. Medeiros, Cristina Pereira & da Silva, Lucas Borges Leal & Alencar, Marcelo Hazin & de Almeida, Adiel Teixeira, 2021. "A new method for managing multidimensional risks in Natural Gas Pipelines based on non-Expected Utility," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 214(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. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Maria Abellan-Perpiñan & Jose Luis Pinto-Prades & Ildefonso Mendez-Martinez, 2007. "Resolving Inconsistencies in Utility Measurement Under Risk: Tests of Generalizations of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(3), pages 469-482, March.
    2. Han Bleichrodt, 2002. "A new explanation for the difference between time trade‐off utilities and standard gamble utilities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(5), pages 447-456, July.
    3. Oliver, Adam, 2003. "The internal consistency of the standard gamble: tests after adjusting for prospect theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 159, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Oliver, Adam, 2003. "The internal consistency of the standard gamble: tests after adjusting for prospect theory," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 659-674, July.
    5. Oliver, Adam, 2003. "A quantitative and qualitative test of the Allais paradox using health outcomes," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 35-48, February.
    6. Christopher Schwand & Rudolf Vetschera & Lea Wakolbinger, 2010. "The influence of probabilities on the response mode bias in utility elicitation," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 395-416, September.
    7. Peter Brooks & Horst Zank, 2005. "Loss Averse Behavior," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 301-325, December.
    8. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    9. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Zimmermann, Jacqueline M., 1998. "Buying and Selling Prices of Investments: Configural Weight Model of Interactions Predicts Violations of Joint Independence," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 145-187, May.
    10. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten & Meyer, Steffen & Hackethal, Andreas, 2019. "Taming models of prospect theory in the wild? Estimation of Vlcek and Hens (2011)," SAFE Working Paper Series 146, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2019.
    11. 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.
    12. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier L'Haridon & Corina Paraschiv, 2011. "Experienced vs. Described Uncertainty: Do We Need Two Prospect Theory Specifications?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(10), pages 1879-1895, October.
    13. Henry Stott, 2006. "Cumulative prospect theory's functional menagerie," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 101-130, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto, 2000. "A Parameter-Free Elicitation of the Probability Weighting Function in Medical Decision Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(11), pages 1485-1496, November.
    16. Arthur E. Attema & Werner B.F. Brouwer, 2014. "Deriving Time Discounting Correction Factors For Tto Tariffs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4), pages 410-425, April.
    17. Michael H. Birnbaum & Ulrich Schmidt & Miriam D. Schneider, 2017. "Testing independence conditions in the presence of errors and splitting effects," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 61-85, February.
    18. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto & Peter P. Wakker, 2001. "Making Descriptive Use of Prospect Theory to Improve the Prescriptive Use of Expected Utility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(11), pages 1498-1514, November.
    19. Francesco Cesarone & Massimiliano Corradini & Lorenzo Lampariello & Jessica Riccioni, 2023. "A new behavioral model for portfolio selection using the Half-Full/Half-Empty approach," Papers 2312.10749, arXiv.org.
    20. Birnbaum, Michael H. & Patton, Jamie N. & Lott, Melissa K., 1999. "Evidence against Rank-Dependent Utility Theories: Tests of Cumulative Independence, Interval Independence, Stochastic Dominance, and Transitivity, , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 44-83, January.

    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:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:10:p:863-871. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.