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Ordered Surprises and Conditional Probability Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Dominiak
  • Matthew Kovach
  • Gerelt Tserenjigmid

Abstract

We study conditioning on null events, or surprises, and behaviorally characterize the Ordered Surprises (OS) representation of beliefs. For feasible events, our Decision Maker (DM) is Bayesian. For null events, our DM considers a hierarchy of beliefs until one is consistent with the surprise. The DM adopts this prior and applies Bayes' rule. Unlike Bayesian updating, OS is a complete updating rule: conditional beliefs are well-defined for any event. OS is (behaviorally) equivalent to the Conditional Probability System (Myerson, 1986b) and is a special case of Hypothesis Testing (Ortoleva, 2012), clarifying the relationships between the various approaches to null events.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Dominiak & Matthew Kovach & Gerelt Tserenjigmid, 2022. "Ordered Surprises and Conditional Probability Systems," Papers 2208.02533, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2208.02533
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Luo, Xiao & Qian, Xuewen, 2025. "Conditional hypothesis testing systems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

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