The purpose of the paper is to provide a general framework for analyzing "preference for opportunities." Based on two simple axioms a fundamental result due to Kreps is used in order to represent rankings of opportunity sets in terms of multiple preferences. The paper provides several refinements of the basic representation theorem. In particular, a condition of "closedness under compromise" is suggested in order to distinguish the flexibility interpretation of the model from normative interpretations which play a crucial role in justifying the intrinsic value of opportunities. Moreover, the paper clarifies the link between the multiple preference approach and the "choice function" approach to evaluating opportunities. In particular, it is shown how the well-known Aizerman/Malishevski result on rationalizability of choice functions can be obtained as a corollary from the more general multiple preference representation of a ranking of opportunity sets.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by California Davis - Department of Economics in its series Department of Economics with number
97-07.
Length: Date of creation: Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:fth:caldec:97-07
Contact details of provider: Postal: University of California Davis - Department of Economics. One Shields Ave., California 95616-8578 Phone: (530) 752-0741 Fax: (530) 752-9382 Email: Web page: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Thomas Krichel).
Did you know? You can import bibliographic info in various formats into you bibliographic tool, or just into your word processor. See under "publisher info" on each abstract page.