IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/theord/v58y2005i1p3-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Likelihood Method for Decision under Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Mohammed Abdellaoui
  • Peter Wakker

Abstract

This paper introduces the likelihood method for decision under uncertainty. The method allows the quantitative determination of subjective beliefs or decision weights without invoking additional separability conditions, and generalizes the Savage–de Finetti betting method. It is applied to a number of popular models for decision under uncertainty. In each case, preference foundations result from the requirement that no inconsistencies are to be revealed by the version of the likelihood method appropriate for the model considered. A unified treatment of subjective decision weights results for most of the decision models popular today. Savage’s derivation of subjective expected utility can now be generalized and simplified. In addition to the intuitive and empirical contributions of the likelihood method, we provide a number of technical contributions: We generalize Savage’s nonatomiticy condition (“P6â€\x9D) and his assumption of (sigma) algebras of events, while fully maintaining his flexibility regarding the outcome set. Derivations of Choquet expected utility and probabilistic sophistication are generalized and simplified similarly. The likelihood method also reveals a common intuition underlying many other conditions for uncertainty, such as definitions of ambiguity aversion and pessimism. Copyright Springer 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Mohammed Abdellaoui & Peter Wakker, 2005. "The Likelihood Method for Decision under Uncertainty," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 3-76, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:58:y:2005:i:1:p:3-76
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-005-8320-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11238-005-8320-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11238-005-8320-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    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. Katarzyna M. Werner & Horst Zank, 2019. "A revealed reference point for prospect theory," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 67(4), pages 731-773, June.
    3. Craig Webb, 2015. "Piecewise additivity for non-expected utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(2), pages 371-392, October.
    4. Meng, Jingyi & Webb, Craig S. & Zank, Horst, 2024. "Mixture independence foundations for expected utility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    5. Grant, Simon & Rich, Patricia & Stecher, Jack, 2022. "Bayes and Hurwicz without Bernoulli," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    6. Denis Bouyssou & Thierry Marchant, 2011. "Subjective expected utility without preferences," Working Papers hal-00606939, HAL.
    7. Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2012. "A genuine foundation for prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 97-113, October.
    8. Fan Wang, 2022. "Rank-Dependent Utility Under Multiple Priors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8166-8183, November.
    9. Katarzyna Werner & Horst Zank, 2012. "Foundations for Prospect Theory Through Probability Midpoint Consistency," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1210, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    10. Gijs van de Kuilen & Peter P. Wakker, 2011. "The Midweight Method to Measure Attitudes Toward Risk and Ambiguity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 582-598, March.
    11. Craig S. Webb, 2017. "Purely subjective variational preferences," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 64(1), pages 121-137, June.
    12. Mark J. Machina, 2009. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Rank-Dependence Axioms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 385-392, March.
    13. Wakker, Peter P. & Yang, Jingni, 2021. "Concave/convex weighting and utility functions for risk: A new light on classical theorems," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 429-435.
    14. Kopylov, Igor, 2007. "Subjective probabilities on "small" domains," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 236-265, March.
    15. Abdellaoui, Mohammed & Wakker, Peter P., 2020. "Savage for dummies and experts," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).

    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:kap:theord:v:58:y:2005:i:1:p:3-76. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.