Foundations of Utility and Risk Theory with Applications

ISBN-13: 9789048183647 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 494 str.

Bernt P. Stigum; Fred Wenstop

Opis

In this volume we present some o the papers that were delivered at FUR-82 - the First International Con erence on Foundations o Utility and Risk Theory in Oslo, June 1982. The purpose o the con erence was to provide a orum within which scientists could report on interesting applications o modern decision theory and exchange ideas about controversial issues in the oundations o the theory o choice under un certainty. With that purpose in mind we have selected a mixture of applied and theoretical papers that we hope will appeal to a wide spectrum o readers rom graduate students in social science departments and business schools to people involved in making hardheaded decisions in business and government. In an introductory article Ole Hagen gives an overview o various paradoxes in utility and risk theory and discusses these in the light o scientific methodology. He concludes the article by calling or joint efforts to provide decision makers with warkable theories. Kenneth Arrow takes up the same issue on a broad basis in his paper where he discusses the implications o behavior under uncertainty for policy. In the theoretical papers the reader will ind attempts at de initive Statements of the meaning o old concepts and suggestions for the adoption o new concepts. For instance, Maurice Allais discusses four di ferent interpretations o the axioms o probability and explains the need or an empirical characterization o the concept of chance."

Spis treści

Opening Address.- Paradoxes and Their Solutions.- Behavior Under Uncertainty and Its Implications for Policy.- Frequency, Probability and Chance.- Utility Analysis from the Point of View of Model Building.- On Second Order Probabilities and the Notion of Epistemic Risk.- Expected Utility Theory Does Not Apply to All Rational Men.- Sure-Thing Doubts.- The Pre-Outcome Period and the Utility of Gambling.- Empirical Demonst:ation that Expected Utility Decision Analysis is Not Operational.- Risk Attitude Hypotheses of Utility Theory.- Probabilistic Forecasts: Some Results and Speculations.- The Supra-Additivity of Subjective Probability.- A Decision Analysis Model When the Substitution Principle is Not Acceptable.- Generalized Expected Utility Analysis and the Nature of Observed Violations of the Independence Axiom.- Use of Subjective Probabilities in Game Theory.- Bargaining and Rationality: A Discussion of Zeuthen’as Principle and Some Other Decision Rules.- Hotelling Utility Functions.- Cardinal Utility and Decision Making Under Uncertainty.- Decision Making with an Uncertain Utility Function.- Welfare Losses Arising from Increased Public Information, and/or the Opening of New Securities Markets: Examples of the General Theory of the Second Best.- Decision Making in Dynamic Environments.- The Economics of Organizational Design.- Indifference Spanning Analysis.- Evaluation of Oil Spill Combat Plans by Means of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.- Name Index.