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Boolean Representations of Preferences under Ambiguity

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Abstract
We propose a class of multiple-prior representations of preferences under ambiguity where the belief the decision-maker (DM) uses to evaluate an uncertain prospect is the outcome of a game played by two conflicting forces, Pessimism and Optimism. The model does not restrict the sign of the DM's ambiguity attitude, and we show that it provides a unified framework through which to characterize different degrees of ambiguity aversion, as well as to represent context-dependent negative and positive ambiguity attitudes documented in experiments. We prove that our baseline representation, Boolean expected utility (BEU), yields a novel representation of the class of invariant biseparable preferences (Ghirardato, Maccheroni, and Marinacci, 2004), which drops uncertainty aversion from maxmin expected utility (Gilboa and Schmeidler, 1989), while extensions of BEU allow for more general departures from independence.

Suggested Citation

  • Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2019. "Boolean Representations of Preferences under Ambiguity," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2180R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jul 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2180r
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    Cited by:

    1. Madhav Chandrasekher & Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2022. "Dual‐Self Representations of Ambiguity Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(3), pages 1029-1061, May.
    2. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yves Le Yaouanq, 2020. "Objective rationality foundations for (dynamic) alpha-MEU," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2244R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jul 2021.
    3. Shaowei Ke & Qi Zhang, 2020. "Randomization and Ambiguity Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(3), pages 1159-1195, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ambiguity; Multiple priors; Dual-self models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

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