IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/683.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Calibration Results for Incomplete Preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Zvi Safra

    (Tel Aviv University)

  • Uzi Segal

    (Boston College)

Abstract

A reasonable level of risk aversion with respect to small gambles leads to a high, and absurd, level of risk aversion with respect to large gambles. This was demonstrated by Rabin for expected utility theory. Later, Safra and Segal extended this result by showing that similar arguments apply to almost all non-expected utility theories, provided they are Gateaux differentiable. In this paper we drop the differentiability assumption and by restricting attention to betweenness theories we show that much weaker conditions are sufficient for the derivation of similar calibration results.

Suggested Citation

  • Zvi Safra & Uzi Segal, 2008. "Calibration Results for Incomplete Preferences," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 683, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:683
    Note: formerly circulated as "Calibration Results for Betweenness Functionals"
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp683.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chew, S H & Epstein, Larry G & Segal, U, 1991. "Mixture Symmetry and Quadratic Utility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(1), pages 139-163, January.
    2. Dean P. Foster & Sergiu Hart, 2009. "An Operational Measure of Riskiness," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 785-814.
    3. Machina, Mark J, 1982. ""Expected Utility" Analysis without the Independence Axiom," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 277-323, March.
    4. Zvi Safra & Uzi Segal, 2008. "Calibration Results for Non-Expected Utility Theories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(5), pages 1143-1166, September.
    5. Gul, Faruk, 1991. "A Theory of Disappointment Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(3), pages 667-686, May.
    6. Chew, Soo Hong, 1983. "A Generalization of the Quasilinear Mean with Applications to the Measurement of Income Inequality and Decision Theory Resolving the Allais Paradox," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(4), pages 1065-1092, July.
    7. Luigi Guiso & Monica Paiella, 2008. "Risk Aversion, Wealth, and Background Risk," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(6), pages 1109-1150, December.
    8. Guiso, Luigi & Jappelli, Tullio & Terlizzese, Daniele, 1996. "Income Risk, Borrowing Constraints, and Portfolio Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 158-172, March.
    9. Safra, Zvi & Segal, Uzi, 1998. "Constant Risk Aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 19-42, November.
    10. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    11. Fishburn, Peter C., 1983. "Transitive measurable utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 293-317, December.
    12. Dekel, Eddie, 1986. "An axiomatic characterization of preferences under uncertainty: Weakening the independence axiom," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 304-318, December.
    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. Balter, Anne G. & Chau, Ki Wai & Schweizer, Nikolaus, 2022. "Rabin’s calibration theorem revisited," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).

    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. Zvi Safra & Uzi Segal, 2009. "Risk aversion in the small and in the large: Calibration results for betweenness functionals," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 27-37, February.
    2. Zvi Safra & Uzi Segal, 2005. "Are Universal Preferences Possible? Calibration Results for Non-Expected Utility Theories," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 633, Boston College Department of Economics.
    3. Xi Zhi Lim, 2021. "Ordered Reference Dependent Choice," Papers 2105.12915, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    4. Daniel R. Burghart, 2020. "The two faces of independence: betweenness and homotheticity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(4), pages 567-593, May.
    5. Liang Zou, 2006. "An Alternative to Prospect Theory," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, May.
    6. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Segal, Uzi, 2014. "Transitive regret over statistically independent lotteries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 237-248.
    7. Kontek, Krzysztof, 2015. "Fanning-Out or Fanning-In? Continuous or Discontinuous? Estimating Indifference Curves Inside the Marschak-Machina Triangle using Certainty Equivalents," MPRA Paper 63965, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Freeman, David, 2015. "Calibration without reduction for non-expected utility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 158(PA), pages 21-32.
    9. Harless, David W & Camerer, Colin F, 1994. "The Predictive Utility of Generalized Expected Utility Theories," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1251-1289, November.
    10. Epstein, Larry G. & Zin, Stanley E., 2001. "The independence axiom and asset returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 537-572, December.
    11. Simone Cerreia‐Vioglio & David Dillenberger & Pietro Ortoleva, 2015. "Cautious Expected Utility and the Certainty Effect," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 693-728, March.
    12. Michele Bernasconi, 2002. "How should income be divided? questionnaire evidence from the theory of “Impartial preferences”," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 163-195, December.
    13. Belianin, A., 2017. "Face to Face to Human Being: Achievements and Challenges of Behavioral Economics," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 166-175.
    14. Dean, Mark & Ortoleva, Pietro, 2017. "Allais, Ellsberg, and preferences for hedging," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), January.
    15. Ormiston, Michael B. & E. Schlee, Edward, 1999. "Comparative statics tests between decision models under risk," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 145-166, October.
    16. David Freeman, 2013. "Revealed Preference Foundations of Expectations-Based Reference-Dependence," Discussion Papers dp13-10, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    17. Mickael Beaud & Marc Willinger, 2015. "Are People Risk Vulnerable?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(3), pages 624-636, March.
    18. Soo Hong Chew & Jacob S. Sagi, 2022. "A critical look at the Aumann-Serrano and Foster-Hart measures of riskiness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 74(2), pages 397-422, September.
    19. Dillenberger, David, 2008. "Preferences for One-Shot Resolution of Uncertainty and Allais-Type Behavior," MPRA Paper 8342, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. David Dillenberger, 2008. "Preferences for One-Shot Resolution of Uncertainty and Allais-Type Behavior," PIER Working Paper Archive 08-036, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    risk aversion; betweenness;

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boc:bocoec:683. 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: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    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.