Theory and Decision最新文献

This paper explores bidding behaviour under risk and uncertainty using the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism (BDM) and second price auction (SPA). It investigates whether values elicited via the two mechanisms are consistent and whether bidding behaviour can be influenced by differences in the number and type of sources of risk and uncertainty that people face when exposed to the two mechanisms. In our experiment, subjects are exposed to non-monetary lotteries where they bid for a high-quality seafood product, but there is a chance (known or unknown) that they receive a lower quality seafood product instead. Results indicate that bidding behaviour can be influenced by the number and type of sources of risk and uncertainty that subjects face and subjects’ bidding behaviour is only consistent with standard theories of decision making under risk and uncertainty when they bid on a risky product in the SPA. Despite this, BDM and SPA elicit equal values under risk and uncertainty in this study.

This study investigates the impact of cheap talk on price and participant profits using a repeated Bertrand oligopoly experiment. During the first 10 rounds, participants are not allowed to communicate with each other. Twenty additional rounds are then played in which the participants can text with one another using an instant message system. Some groups are allowed to text before every round, some before every other round, some every third round, some every fourth round, and others only every fifth round. On average, when texting is allowed, groups attempt to collude to raise the price after being allowed to text. In summary, success in collusion with cheap talk is correlated with a combination of how often participants can text, the subject of their texts, and whether participants actually text when they can.

We present a theoretical framework of individual-decision making that incorporates both moral motivations and social influence into the utility function. The main idea of the paper is that individuals face a trade-off between their material individual interests and their desire to follow moral obligation. In our model, we assume that moral motivation is weak or conditional in the sense that it may be influenced by others’ actions. Specifically, in our framework one’s moral obligation is a combination of two main components: an autonomous component and a social component that captures the influence of others. Our theoretical framework is able to explain many stylized results commonly observed in the literature and suggests a different mechanism to explain economic behavior.

The small improvement argument has been said to establish that the standard weak preference or value relation can be incomplete. We first show that the argument is one of three possible ‘small amendment arguments’, each of which would yield the same conclusion. Generalizing the analysis thus, we subsequently present a strong and a weak version of small amendment arguments and derive the exact rationality conditions under which they reveal incompleteness. The results show that the arguments (in any of their variants) need not reveal a problem for the possibility of rational choice. In fact, it can be argued that they only reveal such a problem if the underlying relation is complete rather than incomplete.

Savage’s famous representation theorem is based on seven postulates of rational choice. We resolve some loose ends in the literature concerning the relationship between different versions of Savage’s axioms. This leads us to the present form of the representation theorem. We also discuss some issues regarding the historical development of Savage’s representation theorem.

We propose a framework for the analysis of choice behaviour when the latter is made explicitly in chronological order. We relate this framework to the traditional choice theoretic setting from which the chronological aspect is absent, and compare it to other frameworks that extend this traditional setting. Then, we use this framework to analyse various models of preference discovery. We characterise, via simple revealed preference tests, several models that differ in terms of (1) the priors that the decision-maker holds about alternatives and (2) whether the decision-maker chooses period by period or uses her knowledge about future menus to inform her present choices. These results provide novel testable implications for the preference discovery process of myopic and forward-looking agents.

We address the issue of fairly rewarding contributors to a crowdfunded project. We develop a theoretical non-strategic model, and introduce a new reward rule: a contributor’s reward depends both on her financial contribution and on the timing of her contribution. Following the axiomatic method used in models of resource sharing, we characterize this new reward rule by a pair of natural axioms. The resulting rewards coincide with the Shapley value of a suitable cooperative game built from the crowdfunding project. This allocation rule conveys a signaling effect: if two contributors make the same financial contribution, the earlier obtains a greater reward.

This study aims to provide a manageable symmetric two-players conflict model in which, defining measures for polarization and hostility, we investigate the effects of spillovers into the properties of the sets of equilibria, into the intensity of conflict, and into the endogenous changes in polarization and hostility. We show that, without spillovers, the equilibrium efforts’ intensity is uniquely connected to the ratio of the marginal productivity of effort to (ex ante) polarization. Conversely, we show that negative spillovers in conflict technology can imply the non-existence of equilibria. Then, introducing spillovers in the possible outcomes of the conflict, we connect the existence of multiple symmetric and asymmetric equilibria to the intensity of growing polarization and hostility. We then investigate the different effects of marginal productivity of effort, (ex ante) polarization and rates of growth of polarization and hostility on the intensity of conflict as well as on polarization and hostility at equilibrium. The results show the crucial role played by hostility, a factor disregarded in many conflict models. Finally, we show how the results obtained by considering partial spillover effects are confirmed when the general case is taken into account.

The paper analyzes how programs offering financial rewards for losing weight should be adapted to individuals’ preferences. Specifically, we highlight the conditions under which demanding and highly remunerative programs or—conversely—easily achievable but less remunerative programs should be proposed. We show that financial incentives are more likely to encourage efforts to lose weight if the level of difficulty of the objective and the reward in case of success increase with: 1) the degree of risk seeking; 2) the degree of cross-prudence in quality of life. This suggests that individuals should be offered a weight loss program tailored to their preferences towards risk and correlation.

We explore several behavioral issues associated with bidding behavior in the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism; a popular mechanism in experimental economics and valuation research. By manipulating the random binding price and framing, we find that bids are affected by the choices made by experimenters. Our theoretical framework, shows that the treatment effects are consistent with an attachment to expectations-based reference points, anchoring on the highest price, as well as the no-loss-in-buying hypothesis of Novemsky and Kahneman (2005). Overall, our theory and experimental results confirm that the mechanism is not incentive compatible and thus previous results regarding product valuations, as well as various treatment effects identified using the mechanism, should be interpreted as conditional on the particular choice of design variables.