IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/cesptp/hal-00528380.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Betting on Machina's reflection example: an experiment on ambiguity

Author

Listed:
  • Olivier L'Haridon

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP4 - Université Paris-Sorbonne)

  • Laetitia Placido

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

In a recent article, Machina (Am Econ Rev forthcoming, 2008) suggested choice problems in the spirit of Ellsberg (Q J Econ 75:643-669, 1961), which challenge tail-separability, an implication of Choquet expected utility (CEU), to a similar extent as the Ellsberg paradox challenged the sure-thing principle implied by subjective expected utility (SEU). We have tested choice behavior for bets on one of Machina's choice problems, the reflection example. Our results indicate that tail-separability is violated by a large majority of subjects (over 70% of the sample). These empirical findings complement the theoretical analysis of Machina (Am Econ Rev forthcoming, 2008) and, together, they confirm the need for new approaches in the analysis of ambiguity for decision making.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier L'Haridon & Laetitia Placido, 2010. "Betting on Machina's reflection example: an experiment on ambiguity," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00528380, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-00528380
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-008-9128-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diecidue, Enrico & Wakker, Peter P, 2001. "On the Intuition of Rank-Dependent Utility," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 281-298, November.
    2. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Frank Vossmann & Martin Weber, 2005. "Choice-Based Elicitation and Decomposition of Decision Weights for Gains and Losses Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(9), pages 1384-1399, September.
    3. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2008:i:19:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Laetitia Placido & Olivier L'Haridon, 2008. "An allais paradox for generalized expected utility theories?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(19), pages 1-6.
    5. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    6. Wu, George, 1994. "An Empirical Test of Ordinal Independence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 39-60, July.
    7. Glenn W. Harrison & Morten I. Lau & E. Elisabet Rutström, 2007. "Estimating Risk Attitudes in Denmark: A Field Experiment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(2), pages 341-368, June.
    8. Enrico Diecidue & Peter Wakker & Marcel Zeelenberg, 2007. "Eliciting decision weights by adapting de Finetti’s betting-odds method to prospect theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 179-199, June.
    9. Craig R. Fox & Amos Tversky, 1995. "Ambiguity Aversion and Comparative Ignorance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 585-603.
    10. George Wu & Richard Gonzalez, 1999. "Nonlinear Decision Weights in Choice Under Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(1), pages 74-85, January.
    11. R. Luce & A. Marley, 2005. "Ranked Additive Utility Representations of Gambles: Old and New Axiomatizations," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 21-62, January.
    12. Sarin, Rakesh K & Wakker, Peter, 1992. "A Simple Axiomatization of Nonadditive Expected Utility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(6), pages 1255-1272, November.
    13. Conlisk, John, 1989. "Three Variants on the Allais Example," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 392-407, June.
    14. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    15. Glenn W Harrison & John A List & Charles Towe, 2007. "Naturally Occurring Preferences and Exogenous Laboratory Experiments: A Case Study of Risk Aversion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 433-458, March.
    16. Gilboa, Itzhak & Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 141-153, April.
    17. Sujoy Mukerji & Jean-Marc Tallon & EUREQua & CNRS - Universite Paris I., 2003. "An overview of economic applications of David Schmeidler`s models of decision making under uncertainty," Economics Series Working Papers 165, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Gilboa, Itzhak, 1987. "Expected utility with purely subjective non-additive probabilities," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 65-88, February.
    20. Camerer, Colin & Weber, Martin, 1992. "Recent Developments in Modeling Preferences: Uncertainty and Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 325-370, October.
    21. Camerer, Colin F & Ho, Teck-Hua, 1994. "Violations of the Betweenness Axiom and Nonlinearity in Probability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 167-196, March.
    22. Daniel Ellsberg, 1961. "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 75(4), pages 643-669.
    23. John D Hey & Gianna Lotito & Anna Maffioletti, 2007. "Choquet OK?," Discussion Papers 07/12, Department of Economics, University of York.
    24. Yoram Halevy, 2007. "Ellsberg Revisited: An Experimental Study," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 503-536, March.
    25. Fennema, Hein & Wakker, Peter, 1996. "A Test of Rank-Dependent Utility in the Context of Ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 19-35, July.
    26. Schmeidler, David, 1989. "Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 571-587, May.
    27. Marciano Siniscalchi, 2009. "Vector Expected Utility and Attitudes Toward Variation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 801-855, May.
    28. Itzhak Gilboa, 2004. "Uncertainty in Economic Theory," Post-Print hal-00756317, HAL.
    29. Hong, Chew Soo & Wakker, Peter, 1996. "The Comonotonic Sure-Thing Principle," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 5-27, January.
    30. Wakker, Peter & Tversky, Amos, 1993. "An Axiomatization of Cumulative Prospect Theory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 147-175, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Olivier L’Haridon, 2013. "La rationalité à l'épreuve de l'économie comportementale," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 35-89.
    2. Izhakian, Yehuda, 2017. "Expected utility with uncertain probabilities theory," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 91-103.
    3. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Horst Zank, 2023. "Source and rank-dependent utility," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(4), pages 949-981, May.
    4. José Lara Resende & George Wu, 2010. "Competence effects for choices involving gains and losses," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 109-132, April.
    5. Karni, Edi & Maccheroni, Fabio & Marinacci, Massimo, 2015. "Ambiguity and Nonexpected Utility," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    6. Yehuda Izhakian, 2012. "Ambiguity Measurement," Working Papers 12-01, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    7. Izhakian, Yehuda, 2020. "A theoretical foundation of ambiguity measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    8. Florian H. Schneider & Martin Schonger, 2019. "An Experimental Test of the Anscombe–Aumann Monotonicity Axiom," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1667-1677, April.
    9. 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.
    10. Florian Schneider & Martin Schonger, 2015. "An experimental test of the Anscombe-Aumann Monotonicity axiom," ECON - Working Papers 207, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised May 2017.
    11. Stefan Trautmann & Peter P. Wakker, 2018. "Making the Anscombe-Aumann approach to ambiguity suitable for descriptive applications," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 83-116, February.
    12. Aurélien Baillon & Laure Cabantous & Peter Wakker, 2012. "Aggregating imprecise or conflicting beliefs: An experimental investigation using modern ambiguity theories," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 115-147, April.
    13. Adam Dominiak & Jean-Philippe Lefort, 2021. "Ambiguity and Probabilistic Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4310-4326, July.
    14. Fox, Craig R. & Weber, Martin, 2002. "Ambiguity Aversion, Comparative Ignorance, and Decision Context," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 476-498, May.
    15. Robin Cubitt & Gijs van de Kuilen & Sujoy Mukerji, 2020. "Discriminating Between Models of Ambiguity Attitude: a Qualitative Test," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 708-749.
    16. Amit Kothiyal & Vitalie Spinu & Peter Wakker, 2014. "An experimental test of prospect theory for predicting choice under ambiguity," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 1-17, February.
    17. Alexander Zimper, 2011. "Do Bayesians Learn Their Way Out of Ambiguity?," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 8(4), pages 269-285, December.
    18. Michael Kilka & Martin Weber, 2001. "What Determines the Shape of the Probability Weighting Function Under Uncertainty?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(12), pages 1712-1726, December.
    19. Dillenberger, David & Segal, Uzi, 2017. "Skewed noise," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 344-364.
    20. Andrew J. Keith & Darryl K. Ahner, 2021. "A survey of decision making and optimization under uncertainty," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 300(2), pages 319-353, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Choquet expected utility; Experimental economics; Ambiguity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • 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:hal:cesptp:hal-00528380. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.