A social choice function: A function that determines a social choice according to players’ preferences over the different possible alternatives. A mechanism: a game in incomplete information, in which player strategies are based on their private preferences. A mechanism implements a social choice function f if the equilibrium strategies yield an outcome that coincides with f . Dominant strategi...

We characterize optimal strategies in a simple herding model where observations have a small cost. We assume that there are two states and two possible signals that each agent may get. The prior distribution is biased towards adopting behavior. That is ex-ante adopting gives a higher expected utility than not adopting. Contrary to Kultti & Miettinen (2005) herding does not arise deterministical...

We present two axiomatizations of the Second-Order Expected Utility model in the context of the standard models of choice under uncertainty.

The objective of this paper is to show how ambiguity, and a decision maker (DM)’s response to it, can be modelled formally in the context of a general decision model. We introduce a relation derived from the DM’s preferences, called ‘‘unambiguous preference’’, and show that it can be represented by a set of probabilities. We provide such set with a simple differential characterization, and argu...

We generalize the classical expected-utility criterion by weakening transitivity to the conjunction of transitive indifference and Suzumura consistency. In the absence of full transitivity, completeness no longer follows 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...

Recent changes in the assessment andmanagement of risks has had the effect that greater importance has been placed on relationships between individuals and within groups to inform decision making. In this paper, we provide the theoretical underpinning for an expected utility approach to decision-making. The approach, which is presented using established evidence support logic (TESLATM), integra...

We address the problem of hedging inventory risk for a short lifecycle or seasonal item when its demand is correlated with the price of a financial asset. We show how to construct optimal hedging transactions that minimize the variance of profit and increase the expected utility for a risk-averse decision-maker. We show that for a wide range of hedging strategies and utility functions, a risk-a...