How Do Decisions Emerge ? Werner

The basic idea of decision emergence is to generate the prefered decision alternative instead of assuming it as exogeneously given like in neo-classical economics and game theory. The particular problem of ultimatum proposals has been selected in order to rely on experimental observations when speculating how choices emerge. Our approach distinguishes primary and secondary concerns of ultimatum proposers and illustrates how qualitative learning can (re)shape preferences over choices. ¤ Preliminary ideas of this study were presented at a ZIF-Workshop, University of Bielefeld, in August 1994. I thank the participants, especially Reinhard Selten, for an inspiring discussion as well as Ste¤en Huck and Eric van Damme for helpful comments. Support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 373, Quanti…kation und Simulation ökonomischer Prozesse) is gratefully acknowledged.