IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2403.17641.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Share the Sugar

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Tarsney
  • Harvey Lederman
  • Dean Spears

Abstract

We provide a general argument against value incomparability, based on a new style of impossibility result. In particular, we show that, against plausible background assumptions, value incomparability creates an incompatibility between two very plausible principles for ranking lotteries: a weak ``negative dominance'' principle (to the effect that Lottery 1 can be better than Lottery 2 only if some possible outcome of Lottery 1 is better than some possible outcome of Lottery 2) and a weak form of ex ante Pareto (to the effect that, if Lottery 1 gives an unambiguously better prospect to some individuals than Lottery 2, and equally good prospects to everyone else, then Lottery 1 is better than Lottery 2). After spelling out our results, and the arguments based on them, we consider which principle the proponent of incomparability ought to reject.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Tarsney & Harvey Lederman & Dean Spears, 2024. "Share the Sugar," Papers 2403.17641, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2403.17641
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.17641
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCarthy, David & Mikkola, Kalle & Thomas, Teruji, 2020. "Utilitarianism with and without expected utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 77-113.
    2. Gustafsson, Johan E., 2020. "Population axiology and the possibility of a fourth category of absolute value," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 81-110, March.
    3. Arrhenius, Gustaf, 2000. "An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 247-266, October.
    4. , R., 2007. "Can intergenerational equity be operationalized?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(2), June.
    5. Broome,John, 1999. "Ethics out of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521642750.
    6. Gustafsson, Johan E., 2020. "Population axiology and the possibility of a fourth category of absolute value – CORRIGENDUM," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 111-111, March.
    7. Harvey Lederman, 2023. "Incompleteness, Independence, and Negative Dominance," Papers 2311.08471, arXiv.org.
    8. G. Hanoch & H. Levy, 1969. "The Efficiency Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 36(3), pages 335-346.
    9. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2008. "On the Representation of Incomplete Preferences Over Risky Alternatives," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 303-323, December.
    10. Christian Tarsney, 2018. "Exceeding Expectations: Stochastic Dominance as a General Decision Theory," Papers 1807.10895, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    11. Hadar, Josef & Russell, William R, 1969. "Rules for Ordering Uncertain Prospects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 25-34, March.
    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. Johan E. Gustafsson & Dean Spears & St phane Zuber, 2023. "Utilitarianism is Implied by Social and Individual Dominance," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 23016, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    2. Oliver Linton & Esfandiar Maasoumi & Yoon-Jae Wang, 2002. "Consistent testing for stochastic dominance: a subsampling approach," CeMMAP working papers 03/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Hooi Hooi Lean & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2013. "Risk-averse and Risk-seeking Investor Preferences for Oil Spot and Futures," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2013-31, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, revised Aug 2013.
    4. Moshe Levy & Haim Levy, 2013. "Prospect Theory: Much Ado About Nothing?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 7, pages 129-144, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Heller, Yuval & Schreiber, Amnon, 2020. "Short-term investments and indices of risk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(3), July.
    6. Joseph Aharony & Sasson Bar†Yosef, 1987. "Tests of the impact of LIFO adoption on stockholders: A stochastic dominance approach," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(2), pages 430-444, March.
    7. Chateauneuf, Alain & Cohen, Michele & Meilijson, Isaac, 2004. "Four notions of mean-preserving increase in risk, risk attitudes and applications to the rank-dependent expected utility model," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 547-571, August.
    8. Lean, Hooi Hooi & McAleer, Michael & Wong, Wing-Keung, 2015. "Preferences of risk-averse and risk-seeking investors for oil spot and futures before, during and after the Global Financial Crisis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 204-216.
    9. Tsang, Chun-Kei & Wong, Wing-Keung & Horowitz, Ira, 2016. "A stochastic-dominance approach to determining the optimal home-size purchase: The case of Hong Kong," MPRA Paper 69175, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Lizyayev, Andrey & Ruszczyński, Andrzej, 2012. "Tractable Almost Stochastic Dominance," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(2), pages 448-455.
    11. Arvanitis, Stelios & Scaillet, Olivier & Topaloglou, Nikolas, 2020. "Spanning tests for Markowitz stochastic dominance," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 217(2), pages 291-311.
    12. Yaffa Machnes, 2003. "Stochastic Dominance of Pension Plans," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 49-59, February.
    13. Miller-Hooks, Elise & Mahmassani, Hani, 2003. "Path comparisons for a priori and time-adaptive decisions in stochastic, time-varying networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 67-82, April.
    14. Moshe Levy, 2020. "Comment on “Aging Population, Retirement, and Risk Taking”," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2787-2791, June.
    15. Clark, Ephraim & Kassimatis, Konstantinos, 2014. "Exploiting stochastic dominance to generate abnormal stock returns," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 20-38.
    16. Bali, Turan G. & Demirtas, K. Ozgur & Levy, Haim & Wolf, Avner, 2009. "Bonds versus stocks: Investors' age and risk taking," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 817-830, September.
    17. Cho, Young-Hyun & Linton, Oliver & Whang, Yoon-Jae, 2007. "Are there Monday effects in stock returns: A stochastic dominance approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 736-755, December.
    18. Fong, Wai Mun, 2010. "A stochastic dominance analysis of yen carry trades," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1237-1246, June.
    19. Turan G. Bali & Nusret Cakici & Fousseni Chabi-Yo, 2011. "A Generalized Measure of Riskiness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1406-1423, August.
    20. Giora Harpaz, 1986. "Optimal Risk—Sharing Policies," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 30(2), pages 37-40, October.

    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:arx:papers:2403.17641. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.