We generalize the classical expected-utility criterion by weakening transitivity to Suzumura consistency. In the absence of full transitivity, reflexivity and completeness no longer follow as a consequence of the system of axioms employed and a richer class of rankings of probability distributions results. This class is characterized by means of standard expected-utility axioms in addition to S...

A belief operator derived from preferences is presented. It generalizes ‘belief with probability 1’ to incomplete preferences and satisfies minimal requirements for belief operators under weak conditions. JEL Classification no: D81.

We study the updating of beliefs under ambiguity for invariant biseparable preferences. In particular, we show that a natural form of dynamic consistency characterizes the Bayesian updating of these beliefs. JEL classification: D81

We show that professional soccer players exhibit reference-dependent behavior during matches. Controlling for the state of the match and for unobserved heterogeneity, we show on a minute-by-minute basis that a player breaches the rules of the game, measured by the referee’s assignment of cards, with a significantly higher probability if his team is behind the expected match outcome, measured by...

Using controlled experiments to compare the risk attitude and willingness to compete of husbands and wives in 500 couples in rural Vietnam, we find that women are more risk averse than men and that, compared to men, women are less likely to choose to compete, irrespectively of how likely they are to succeed. Our findings suggest that women are more likely to self-select into economic activities...

This paper considers the problem of a risk-neutral firm offering a gamble to consumers with preferences given by prospect theory. Under conditions satisfied by virtually all functional forms used in the literature, firms can extract arbitrarily high expected values from consumers. Moreover, for any given lottery, there exists another lottery that makes both the firm and the consumer better off....

Salience, Risky Choices and Gender Risk theories typically assume individuals make risky choices using probability weights that differ from objective probabilities. Recent theories suggest that probability weights vary depending on which portion of a risky environment is made salient. Using experimental data we show that salience affects young men and women differently, even after controlling f...

Growing economic and psychological evidence documents effects of target setting on levels of effort and risk-taking, even in the absence of a monetary reward for attaining the target. I explore a principal-agent environment in which the principal sets the agent a performance target, and the agent’s intrinsic motivation to work is influenced by their performance relative to the target. When the ...

When an irreversible decision is taken under uncertainty there is an option value of delay. If a small number of agents are in competition each one’s ability to delay is restricted by the fear of preemption, seeming to undermine the real options approach. We present a model in which two firms may invest in competing research projects with uncertain returns. Two distinct types of equilibria aris...

On the domain of Choquet expected utility preferences with risk neutral lottery evaluation and totally monotone capacities, we demonstrate that proper scoring rules do not exist. This implies the non-existence of proper scoring rules for any larger class of preferences (CEU with convex capacities, multiple priors). We also show that if a decision maker whose behavior conforms to the multiple pr...