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Undescribable Events

Author

Listed:
  • Nabil I. Al-Najjar
  • Luca Anderlini
  • Leonardo Felli

Abstract

We develop a model of undescribable events. Examples of events that are well understood by economic agents but are prohibitively difficult to describe in advance abound in real-life. This notion has also pervaded a substantial amount of economic literature. We put forth a model of such events using a simple co-insurance problem as backdrop. Undescribable events in our model are understood by economic agents - their consequences and probabilities are known - but are such that every finite description of such events necessarily leaves out relevant features that have a non-negligible impact on the parties’ expected utilities. We also show that two key ingredients of our model - probabilities that are finitely additive but fail countable additivity, and a state space that is small (discrete in our model) in a measure-theoretic sense -are necessary ingredients of any model of undescribable events that delivers our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Nabil I. Al-Najjar & Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 2003. "Undescribable Events," CESifo Working Paper Series 1092, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1092
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Anderlini, Luca & Felli, Leonardo & Al-Najjar, Nabil I., 2002. "Unforeseen Contingencies," CEPR Discussion Papers 3271, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Azar, Pablo D. & Micali, Silvio, 2018. "Computational principal agent problems," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    3. Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Courts of Law and Unforeseen Contingencies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 662-684, October.
    4. David A. Miller & Kareen Rozen, 2011. "Optimally Empty Promises and Endogenous Supervision," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1823, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jun 2012.
    5. Anderlini, Luca & Felli, Leonardo & Riboni, Alessandro, 2020. "Legal efficiency and consistency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Farzad Pourbabaee, 2021. "High Dimensional Decision Making, Upper and Lower Bounds," Papers 2105.00545, arXiv.org.
    7. Kumabe, Masahiro & Mihara, H. Reiju, 2011. "Computability of simple games: A complete investigation of the sixty-four possibilities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 150-158, March.
    8. Al-Najjar, Nabil I., 2008. "Large games and the law of large numbers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 1-34, September.
    9. M’hand Fares, 2011. "Can a specific performance contract solve the hold-up problem? [Un contrat à obligation d’exécution peut-il résoudre le problème du hold-up ?]," Post-Print hal-02647357, HAL.
    10. Matthias Lang, 2020. "Mechanism Design with Narratives," CESifo Working Paper Series 8502, CESifo.
    11. Shu-Heng Chen & Ragupathy Venkatachalam, 2017. "Information aggregation and computational intelligence," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 231-252, June.
    12. Anderlini, Luca & Felli, Leonardo, 2004. "Bounded rationality and incomplete contracts," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 3-30, March.
    13. Sarah Auster, 2011. "Asymmetric Awareness and Moral Hazard," Economics Working Papers ECO2011/, European University Institute.
    14. Liang Guo, 2021. "Partial Unraveling and Strategic Contract Timing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7719-7736, December.
    15. George Georgiadis & Steven A. Lippman & Christopher S. Tang, 2014. "Project design with limited commitment and teams," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 598-623, September.
    16. Pourbabaee, Farzad, 2021. "High dimensional decision making, upper and lower bounds," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).

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