IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2509.10788.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Choquet rank-dependent utility with an exogenous unambiguous source

Author

Listed:
  • Zachary Van Oosten
  • Ruodu Wang

Abstract

We axiomatize the Choquet rank-dependent utility model within a Savage framework with an exogenous source of pure risk. This model is a decision model under ambiguity, serving as a conceptual generalization of the Choquet expected utility model. The model unifies risk and ambiguity and reduces to the rank-dependent utility for pure risks. Our axiomatization uses two main axioms for biseparable preferences, along with some regularity axioms. A benefit of this axiomatization is that the fairly weak regularity axioms guarantee the existence of matching probabilities. Further, we discuss ambiguity attitudes for the CRDU model. We characterize these attitudes by properties of the associated matching probabilities and show that the supermodularity of the matching probability provides a robust representation. Finally, we show that under an additional Property, this model has a different representation using act-dependent distortion functions.

Suggested Citation

  • Zachary Van Oosten & Ruodu Wang, 2025. "Choquet rank-dependent utility with an exogenous unambiguous source," Papers 2509.10788, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2025.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2509.10788
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.10788
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2008. "Risk Aversion in Cumulative Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(1), pages 208-216, January.
    2. Paolo Ghirardato & Massimo Marinacci, 2001. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Separation of Utility and Beliefs," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 864-890, November.
    3. Wakker, Peter P. & Yang, Jingni, 2019. "A powerful tool for analyzing concave/convex utility and weighting functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 143-159.
    4. Liebrich, Felix-Benedikt, 2024. "Are reference measures of law-invariant functionals unique?," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 129-141.
    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. Wakker, Peter P. & Yang, Jingni, 2021. "Concave/convex weighting and utility functions for risk: A new light on classical theorems," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 429-435.
    2. ,, 2014. "Second order beliefs models of choice under imprecise risk: non-additive second order beliefs vs. nonlinear second order utility," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(3), September.
    3. Chateauneuf, Alain & Eichberger, Jurgen & Grant, Simon, 2007. "Choice under uncertainty with the best and worst in mind: Neo-additive capacities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 538-567, November.
    4. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Olivier L’Haridon & Horst Zank, 2010. "Separating curvature and elevation: A parametric probability weighting function," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 39-65, August.
    5. Philip Bromiley, 2009. "A Prospect Theory Model of Resource Allocation," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 124-138, September.
    6. Md. Shakhawat Hossain, 2025. "Assessing smallholder farmers’ flood risk behavior and their willingness to pay for crop insurance as a risk coping strategy in northern Bangladesh," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 121(4), pages 4191-4217, March.
    7. Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Jingni Yang, 2022. "On the cardinal utility equivalence of biseparable preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 689-701, April.
    8. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    9. Maier, Johannes & Rüger, Maximilian, 2010. "Measuring Risk Aversion Model-Independently," Discussion Papers in Economics 11873, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    10. Chateauneuf, Alain & Ventura, Caroline, 2010. "The no-trade interval of Dow and Werlang: Some clarifications," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 1-14, January.
    11. Amedeo Piolatto & Matthew D. Rablen, 2017. "Prospect theory and tax evasion: a reconsideration of the Yitzhaki puzzle," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(4), pages 543-565, April.
    12. 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.
    13. Patrick DeJarnette & David Dillenberger & Daniel Gottlieb & Pietro Ortoleva, 2020. "Time Lotteries and Stochastic Impatience," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 619-656, March.
    14. Minnich, Aljoscha & Roggenkamp, Hauke & Lange, Andreas, 2024. "Ambiguity attitudes and surprises: Experimental evidence on communicating new information within a large population sample," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    15. Principi, Giulio & Wakker, Peter P. & Wang, Ruodu, 2025. "Antimonotonicity for preference axioms: the natural counterpart to comonotonicity," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 20(3), July.
    16. Lei Wang & Qing Liu & Tongle Yin, 2018. "Decision-making of investment in navigation safety improving schemes with application of cumulative prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 232(6), pages 710-724, December.
    17. Adam Brandenburger & Paolo Ghirardato & Daniele Pennesi & Lorenzo Stanca, 2024. "Event Valence and Subjective Probability," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 717 JEL Classification: D, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    18. Aurélien Baillon & Yoram Halevy & Chen Li, 2022. "Experimental elicitation of ambiguity attitude using the random incentive system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(3), pages 1002-1023, June.
    19. Ghirardato, Paolo & Pennesi, Daniele, 2020. "A general theory of subjective mixtures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    20. Albrecht, Peter & Huggenberger, Markus, 2017. "The fundamental theorem of mutual insurance," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 180-188.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:2509.10788. 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.