This book demonstrates that the state-contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, and principal agent relationships. The authors demonstrate that dual methods apply under uncertainty and that the dual representations can be developed for stochastic technologies. Moreover, proper exploitation of the properties of alternative primal and dual representations of preferences allows analysts to generalize and extend the results of the existing literature on preferences under...

This book demonstrates that the state-contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, and principal agent relationships. The authors demonstrate that dual methods apply under uncertainty and that the dual representations can be developed for stochastic technologies. Moreover, proper exploitation of the properties of alternative primal and dual representations of preferences allows analysts to generalize and extend the results of the existing literature on preferences under...

Economic analysis of choice under uncertainty has been dominated by the expected utility (EU) model, yet the EU model has never been without critics. Psychologists accumulated evidence that individual choices under uncertainty were inconsistent with the predictions of the EU model. Applied work in areas such as finance was dominated by the simpler mean-variance analysis. In the 1980s this skepticism was dispelled as a number of generalizations of EU were proposed, most of which were capable of explaining evidence inconsistent with EU, while preserving transitivity and dominance.
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In the graveyard of economic ideology, dead ideas still stalk the land. The recent financial crisis laid bare many of the assumptions behind market liberalism - the theory that markets always know best, regardless of the problem.

Economic analysis of choice under uncertainty has been dominated by the expected utility (EU) model, yet the EU model has never been without critics. Psychologists accumulated evidence that individual choices under uncertainty were inconsistent with the predictions of the EU model. Applied work in areas such as finance was dominated by the simpler mean-variance analysis. In the 1980s this skepticism was dispelled as a number of generalizations of EU were proposed, most of which were capable of explaining evidence inconsistent with EU, while preserving transitivity and dominance.
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