IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/att/wimass/200421.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Profiling problems with partially identified structure

Author

Listed:
  • Brock,W.A.

    (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Social Systems Research Institute)

Abstract

This article studies two classes of profiling problems where the relevant structural inputs to the problems may be only partially identified: that where profilees are not 'strategic' in altering their characteristics and that where profilees strategically alter their characteristics at a cost. The analysis is unified by assuming there is a utilitarian planner that attempts to optimise the sum of welfare. We compare maximin solutions and minimax-regret solutions in two contexts. An unexpected feature of the minimax-regret solution is that a minimax-regret planner may end up learning unknown features of the population it faces rather quickly relative to a maximin planner. Copyright 2006 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2006.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Brock,W.A., 2004. "Profiling problems with partially identified structure," Working papers 21, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    • Handle: RePEc:att:wimass:200421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2004-21.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Truman F. Bewley, 1987. "Knightian Decision Theory, Part II. Intertemporal Problems," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 835, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Truman F. Bewley, 1986. "Knightian Decision Theory: Part 1," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 807, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    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. Brock, William A. & Durlauf, Steven N. & Nason, James M. & Rondina, Giacomo, 2007. "Simple versus optimal rules as guides to policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 1372-1396, July.
    2. Stoye, Jörg, 2012. "Minimax regret treatment choice with covariates or with limited validity of experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 138-156.
    3. Iverson, Terrence, 2013. "Minimax regret discounting," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 598-608.
    4. William A. Brock & Charles F. Manski, 2011. "Competitive Lending with Partial Knowledge of Loan Repayment: Some Positive and Normative Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(2‐3), pages 441-459, March.
    5. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf, 2015. "On Sturdy Policy Evaluation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S2), pages 447-473.
    6. Charles F. Manski, 2006. "Search Profiling With Partial Knowledge of Deterrence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(515), pages 385-401, November.
    7. Iverson, Terrence, 2012. "Communicating Trade-offs amid Controversial Science: Decision Support for Climate Policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 74-90.
    8. William A. Brock & Charles F. Manski, 2008. "Competitive Lending with Partial Knowledge of Loan Repayment," NBER Working Papers 14378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Stoye, Jörg, 2009. "Minimax regret treatment choice with finite samples," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 151(1), pages 70-81, July.
    10. Brock, William A. & Cooley, Jane & Durlauf, Steven N. & Navarro, Salvador, 2012. "On the observational implications of taste-based discrimination in racial profiling," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 166(1), pages 66-78.
    11. Brock,W.A. & Durlauf,S.N., 2004. "Macroeconomics and model uncertainty," Working papers 20, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.

    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. Hugo Benítez-Silva & Debra Dwyer & Wayne-Roy Gayle & Thomas Muench, 2008. "Expectations in micro data: rationality revisited," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 381-416, March.
    2. Kraus, Alan & Sagi, Jacob S., 2006. "Inter-temporal preference for flexibility and risky choice," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 698-709, September.
    3. Jean-Marc Bonnisseau & Lalaina Rakotonindrainy, 2015. "A note on the characterization of optimal allocations in OLG models with multiple goods," Post-Print halshs-01158117, HAL.
    4. Brock,W.A., 2003. "Tipping points, abrupt opinion changes, and punctuated policy change," Working papers 28, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    5. Leandro Nascimento, 2011. "Remarks on the consumer problem under incomplete preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(1), pages 95-110, January.
    6. Kin Chung Lo, 1998. "Epistemic Conditions for Agreement and Stochastic Independence of epsilon-Contaminated Beliefs," Working Papers 1998_02, York University, Department of Economics.
    7. Robert G. Chambers & Tigran A. Melkonyan, 2010. "Regulatory Policy Design in an Uncertain World," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(6), pages 1081-1107, December.
    8. Lo, Kin Chung, 2000. "Epistemic conditions for agreement and stochastic independence of [epsi]-contaminated beliefs," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 207-234, March.
    9. Lopomo, Giuseppe & Rigotti, Luca & Shannon, Chris, 2011. "Knightian uncertainty and moral hazard," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1148-1172, May.
    10. Robert Chambers & Tigran Melkonyan, 2008. "Eliciting beliefs," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 271-284, December.
    11. Wisnicki, Bartlomiej, 2022. "Consumer inertia fosters product quality," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    12. Spanjers, Willy, 2008. "Central banks and ambiguity," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 85-102.
    13. Barbera, S. & Bossert, W. & Pattanaik, P.K., 2001. "Ranking Sets of Objects," Cahiers de recherche 2001-02, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
    14. Faro, José Heleno & Lefort, Jean-Philippe, 2019. "Dynamic objective and subjective rationality," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(1), January.
    15. Klaus Nehring, 2006. "Decision-Making in the Context of Imprecise Probabilistic Beliefs," Economics Working Papers 0034, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science.
    16. Wolitzky, Alexander, 2016. "Mechanism design with maxmin agents: theory and an application to bilateral trade," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    17. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 1999. "What Level of Fixed Costs Can Reconcile Consumption and Stock Returns?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(5), pages 969-997, October.
    18. Shabnam Mousavi & Gerd Gigerenzer, 2017. "Heuristics are Tools for Uncertainty," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 361-379, December.
    19. Eric Danan, 2021. "Partial utilitarianism," Working Papers hal-03327900, HAL.
    20. Paolo Ghirardato & Fabio Maccheroni & Massimo Marinacci & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2003. "A Subjective Spin on Roulette Wheels," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1897-1908, November.

    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:att:wimass:200421. 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: Ailsenne Sumwalt (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.