IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v144y2009i3p1119-1134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When is there state independence?

Author

Listed:
  • Hill, Brian

Abstract

Whether a preference relation can be represented using state-independent utilities as opposed to state-dependent utilities may depend on which acts count as constant acts. This observation underlies an extension of Savage's expected utility theory to the state-dependent case that was proposed in this journal by Edi Karni. His result contains a condition requiring the existence of a set of acts which can play the role of constant acts and support a representation involving a state-independent utility function. This paper contains necessary and sufficient conditions on the preference relation for such a set of acts to exist. Results are obtained both for the Savage and the Anscombe and Aumann frameworks. Among the corollaries are representation theorems for state-dependent utilities. Relationships to Karni's work and extensions of the results are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Hill, Brian, 2009. "When is there state independence?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1119-1134, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:3:p:1119-1134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022-0531(08)00168-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Karni, Edi & Schmeidler, David, 1993. "On the Uniqueness of Subjective Probabilities," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 3(2), pages 267-277, April.
    2. Edi Karni & Philippe Mongin, 2000. "On the Determination of Subjective Probability by Choices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 233-248, February.
    3. Gilboa, Itzhak, 1987. "Expected utility with purely subjective non-additive probabilities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 65-88, February.
    4. F J Anscombe & R J Aumann, 2000. "A Definition of Subjective Probability," Levine's Working Paper Archive 7591, David K. Levine.
    5. Karni Edi, 1993. "Subjective Expected Utility Theory with State-Dependent Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 428-438, August.
    6. Karni, Edi & Schmeidler, David & Vind, Karl, 1983. "On State Dependent Preferences and Subjective Probabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 1021-1031, July.
    7. Karni, Edi, 1993. "A Definition of Subjective Probabilities with State-Dependent Preferences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 187-198, January.
    8. Peter P. Wakker & Horst Zank, 1999. "State Dependent Expected Utility for Savage's State Space," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 8-34, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean Baccelli, 2015. "Do Bets Reveal Beliefs?," Post-Print hal-01462293, HAL.
    2. Hill, Brian, 2010. "An additively separable representation in the Savage framework," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 2044-2054, September.
    3. Jean Baccelli, 2019. "The Problem of State-Dependent Utility: A Reappraisal," Post-Print hal-02172207, HAL.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hill, Brian, 2010. "An additively separable representation in the Savage framework," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 2044-2054, September.
    2. Karni, Edi, 2007. "Foundations of Bayesian theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 167-188, January.
    3. Brian Hill, 2009. "Living without state-independence of utilities," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 405-432, October.
    4. Skiadas, Costis, 1997. "Subjective Probability under Additive Aggregation of Conditional Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 242-271, October.
    5. Mongin, Philippe, 1998. "The paradox of the Bayesian experts and state-dependent utility theory," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 331-361, April.
    6. Grant, Simon & Meneghel, Idione & Tourky, Rabee, 2013. "Savage Games: A Theory of Strategic Interaction with Purely Subjective Uncertainty," Risk and Sustainable Management Group Working Papers 151501, University of Queensland, School of Economics.
    7. Robert Nau, 2001. "De Finetti was Right: Probability Does Not Exist," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 89-124, December.
    8. Grant, Simon & Meneghel, Idione & Tourky, Rabee, 2016. "Savage games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(2), May.
    9. Peter J. Hammond, 1997. "Subjectively Expected State-Independent Utility on State-Dependent Consequence Domains," Working Papers 97024, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    10. Peter P. Wakker & Sylvia J. T. Jansen & Anne M. Stiggelbout, 2004. "Anchor Levels as a New Tool for the Theory and Measurement of Multiattribute Utility," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 1(4), pages 217-234, December.
    11. Edi Karni & Philippe Mongin, 2000. "On the Determination of Subjective Probability by Choices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 233-248, February.
    12. I. Gilboa & W. A. Postlewaite & D. Schmeidler, 2009. "Probability and Uncertainty in Economic Modeling," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 10.
    13. Chambers, Christopher P. & Hayashi, Takashi, 2006. "Preference aggregation under uncertainty: Savage vs. Pareto," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 430-440, February.
    14. Hammond, Peter J., 2013. "Extending the Original Position: Revisiting the Pattanaik Critique of Vickrey/Harsanyi Utilitarianism," Economic Research Papers 270541, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. Edi Karni & David Schmeidler, 2016. "An expected utility theory for state-dependent preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 81(4), pages 467-478, November.
    16. Simon Grant & Edi Karni, 2005. "Why Does It Matter That Beliefs And Valuations Be Correctly Represented?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 46(3), pages 917-934, August.
    17. Larry Epstein, 1997. "Uncertainty Aversion," Working Papers epstein-97-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    18. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & David Schmeidler, 2007. "Probabilities in Economic Modeling," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000357, UCLA Department of Economics.
    19. Jaime A. Londo~no, 2006. "State Dependent Utility," Papers math/0603316, arXiv.org.
    20. Dietrich, Franz, 2021. "Fully Bayesian aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Subjective expected utility State-dependent utility Monotonicity axiom;

    JEL classification:

    • C69 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Other
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:144:y:2009:i:3:p:1119-1134. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.