Choice Functions: Rationality re-Examined

On analyzing the problem that arises whenever the set of maximal elements is large, and a selection is then required (see Peris & Subiza 1998), we realize that logical ways of selecting among maximals violate the classical notion and axioms of rationality. We arrive at the same conclusion if we analyze solutions to the problem of choosing from a tournament (where maximal elements do not necessarily exist). So, in our opinion the notion of rationality must be discussed, not only in the traditional sense of external conditions (Sen 1993), but in terms of the internal information provided by the binary relation.     

Is Context-Based Choice due to Context-Dependent Preferences?

The rationalization of context-based choice is usually based on the assumption that preferences are context-dependent. In this paper, we show that context-based choice can be due to the characteristics of the choice procedure applied by the individual and not to the dependence of preferences (stochastic or deterministic) on the context. Our arguments are illustrated focusing on the much-studied dominated-alternative effects.     

Public Policy and Inequalities of Choice and Autonomy

Choice by service users has been promoted in social policy across many developed welfare states, often on the grounds that it will incentivize providers to enhance quality and efficiency. But this instrumental motivation for the promotion of choice overlooks the possibility that choice, understood in the deeper sense of autonomy, has intrinsic value, as suggested by egalitarian and capability‐based theories of social justice. This article argues that the narrow motivation of choice policies leads to a focus on services rather than outcomes for individuals and fails to address deep‐seated inequalities in the opportunities people have for real autonomy. We test this concept using newly collected data for the UK. Our empirical findings indicate that disabled people are more likely to experience constrained autonomy in all respects, while being from a low socio‐economic group and/or lacking educational qualifications is a risk factor across several components. We conclude that improving the ‘choice’ agenda for policy requires: (1) adopting a more sophisticated concept of ‘choice’ such as the conceptualization of ‘choice as autonomy’ outlined here; (2) developing a better understanding of existing inequalities in autonomy, such as we begin to explore in our empirical results; and (3) tackling these inequalities through, for example, the removal of obstacles to active decision‐making by providing effective support and advocacy, especially for disabled people, and addressing the major structural barriers – poverty, ill health and geographical inequality – which place significant restrictions on the autonomy of those who are already disadvantaged.     

A Theory of Rational Choice under Ignorance

This paper contributes to a theory of rational choice for decision-makers with incomplete preferences due to partial ignorance, whose beliefs are representable as sets of acceptable priors. We focus on the limiting case of `Complete Ignorance' which can be viewed as reduced form of the general case of partial ignorance. Rationality is conceptualized in terms of a `Principle of Preference-Basedness', according to which rational choice should be isomorphic to asserted preference. The main result characterizes axiomatically a new choice-rule called `Simultaneous Expected Utility Maximization'. It can be interpreted as agreement in a bargaining game (Kalai-Smorodinsky solution) whose players correspond to the (extremal) `acceptable priors' among which the decision maker has suspended judgment. An essential but non-standard feature of Simultaneous Expected Utility choices is their dependence on the entire choice set. This is justified by the conception of optimality as compromise rather than as superiority in pairwise comparisons.     

An Ethical Interpretation of the Nash Choice Rule

This paper provides an ethical intepretation of the Nash choice rule. In a setting in which (cardinal) utilities are interpersonally comparable, this procedure is characterised by an impartiality requirement and by the assumption that choices are not responsive to the agents' relative ability to convert resources into utility.     

Constraints and the Measurement of Freedom of Choice

This paper introduces considerations about constraints in the construction of measures of an agent's freedom. It starts with motivating the exercise from both the philosophical and the informational point of view. Then it presents two rankings of opportunity sets based on information about the extent of options and the constraints that a decision maker faces. The first ranking measures freedom as variety of choice; the second as non-restrictedness in choice.     

在读女研究生怀孕问题的分析与思考——以“理性选择理论”为视角

本文在对141份样本统计分析的基础上，揭示了在读女研究生怀孕的动因及在校研究生对此类事情的不同认识与态度，并进一步从理性选择理论的视角出发表达了笔者对此问题的思考与看法。     

论政治文明的文化选择

文化即人化,它是人类所创造的精神成果和物质成果的总和;文明是文化的结晶,是文化主体对人类文化中野蛮性、愚昧性不断扬弃的结果,是人类有目的、有选择地过滤人类文化、形成合理文化内核的过程。中国当前的政治文明建设,需要走出“精华”和“糟粕”的简单二分的误区,用外来文化中国化、传统文化现代化,来开辟中国文化发展之路。弱化暴力色彩,强化仁政效应,构建中国特色的政治文明。     

Production under Uncertainty and Choice under Uncertainty in the Emergence of Generalized Expected Utility Theory

This paper presents a personal view of the interaction between the analysis of choice under uncertainty and the analysis of production under uncertainty. Interest in the foundations of the theory of choice under uncertainty was stimulated by applications of expected utility theory such as the Sandmo model of production under uncertainty. This interest led to the development of generalized models including rank-dependent expected utility theory. In turn, the development of generalized expected utility models raised the question of whether such models could be used in the analysis of applied problems such as those involving production under uncertainty. Finally, the revival of the state-contingent approach led to the recognition of a fundamental duality between choice problems and production problems. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

现代宗教是理性选择的吗质疑宗教的理性选择研究范式

本文在关注宗教社会学理论如何给现代社会的宗教现象以合理的解释的同时,对运用理性选择理论解释现代宗教的取向提出商榷。尽管理性选择理论非常强势,号称有相当普遍的解释力,但本文还是试图对以理性选择理论来解释现代社会宗教的有效性提出质疑,认为 “宗教经济”范式中的宗教市场的“供方”与“求方”是理解宗教的错误逻辑,在工具理性和价值理性两个重要概念中有相互混淆和偷换之嫌。本文最后指出,目前仅以宗教市场理论研究中国宗教具有一定的危险性,必须谨慎地使用。     

A Note On Impossibility Theorems and Seniority Rules

We characterize seniority rules, also known as lexical dictatorships, under weak consistency constraints on the groups choice function. These constraints are base triple-acyclicity in the case of binary choices and rationalizability (although not rationality) in the case of choices between an arbitrary number of alternatives. Existing results on these weakened constraints remain silent on the treatment of the groups most junior individuals and therefore do not yield a complete characterization of seniority rules. We also impose a universal domain, binary strict Pareto optimality, binary Pareto indifference, binary independence of irrelevant alternatives, and the newly introduced condition of conflict resolution. The latter condition requires a social choice rules not to remain indecisive between alternatives for which individuals have conflicting preferences.JEL CLASSIFICATIONS: D63, D71This revised version was published online in May 2005 with a corrected article title.     

When 'Choice' and 'Choice' Are not the Same: Institutional Frameworks of Choice in the German Welfare System

The creation and strengthening of welfare markets in Germany means that citizens can increasingly choose among competing providers of welfare goods and services. However, the conditions under which citizens may exercise choice in various fields of social policy are quite different. A major reason for these differences can be found in the public institutions that frame citizens' choice in welfare markets. This article analyses welfare markets in German health care, long-term care, pensions and employment policies, paying special attention to the respective public institutional frameworks. It will be argued that differences between frameworks of choice can be categorized by means of four parameters representing different aspects of public involvement in welfare markets. Depending on the kind and the degree of public involvement, welfare markets may be compatible with 'traditional' notions of public responsibility for citizens' social security.     

Dynamic Choice and NonExpected Utility

This paper explores how some widely studied classes of nonexpected utility models could be used in dynamic choice situations. A new "sequential consistency" condition is introduced for single-stage and multi-stage decision problems. Sequential consistency requires that if a decision maker has committed to a family of models (e.g., the multiple priors family, the rank-dependent family, or the betweenness family) then he use the same family throughout. Conditions are presented under which dynamic consistency, consequentialism, and sequential consistency can be simultaneously preserved for a nonexpected utility maximizer. An important class of applications concerns cases where the exact sequence of decisions and events, and thus the dynamic structure of the decision problem, is relevant to the decision maker. It is shown that for the multiple priors model, dynamic consistency, consequentialism, and sequential consistency can all be preserved. The result removes the argument that nonexpected utility models cannot be consistently used in dynamic choice situations. Rank-dependent and betweenness models can only be used in a restrictive manner, where deviation from expected utility is allowed in at most one stage.     

Freedom of Choice through the Promotion of Gender Equality

This article argues that policies that promote gender equality actually also increase freedom of choice. Thus, despite the neo-liberal criticism that welfare policies limit choices and privatization and market solutions increase freedom of choice, this article concludes that market-liberal welfare regimes offer less choice than the Nordic type of social-democratic welfare regimes, which have openly striven to promote gender equality. They do so by making it easier for mothers to choose to work (by making day care available and making it easier for fathers to stay at home with children) and by giving fathers the ability to choose to spend more time with children. However, within the realm of such policies, it is still possible to offer more or less freedom of choice, for example, by making parental leaves either extremely flexible or rigid in how they are utilized. Interestingly, it turns out that, in the real world, policies that promote gender equality even offer greater freedom of choice for the group of women considered to be 'family oriented' as well as for lesbian and homosexual couples.     

Increasing Choice and Control for Older and Disabled People: A Critical Review of New Developments in England

This paper critically examines new policies currently being implemented in England aimed at increasing the choice and control that disabled and older people can exercise over the social care support and services they receive. The development of these policies, and their elaboration in three policy documents published during 2005, are summarized. The paper then discusses two issues underpinning these proposals: the role of quasi‐markets within publicly funded social care services; and the political and policy discourses of consumerism and choice within the welfare state. Despite powerful critiques of welfare consumerism, the paper argues that there are nevertheless very important reasons for taking choice seriously when considering how best to organize and deliver support and other services for disabled and older people. A policy discourse on consumerism, however, combined with the use of market mechanisms for implementing this, may be highly problematic as the means of creating opportunities for increased choice and, on its own, risks introducing new forms of disadvantage and social exclusion.     

Analysis of Intertemporal Choice: A New Framework and Experimental Results

This paper reports the results of a series of experiments examining intertemporal choice. The paper makes three contributions: First, it presents a new analytic device, the intertemporal choice triangle, which is analogous to the Marschak--Machina choice triangle used in the analysis of choice under risk. Second, we have developed a new experimental design based on the intertemporal choice triangle which allows subjects greater flexibility in making choices, and which allows the researcher to make more subtle inferences, than are possible with designs previously employed. Subjects are able to create their most-preferred outcome in each choice situation by choosing a constrained linear combination of two extreme options. Third, our results show that while subjects do not typically maximize present value, they are significantly influenced break by present value considerations. We refer to this finding as it present value-seeking behavior. We find only weak evidence of several previously documented intertemporal choice anomalies in our framework.     

Allocating Homes for People with Intellectual Disability: Needs,Mix and Choice

Allocation of housing and support services for people with intellectual disability is based on three major sets of criteria: an assessment of the applicants' needs; considerations of social mix; and the applicants' own choices. This article examines the philosophical and institutional rationales underlying each of these notions and the tensions arising when seeking to achieve a balance between them. The first section of the article is based on a review of related studies in the UK, the USA and Australia, mainly on allocation policies in mainstream social housing. The second section presents original empirical work carried out in the state of Victoria, Australia, in 2007–08, illustrating some of the implications of a new balance that was created between needs, mix and choice in allocation of housing and support for people with intellectual disability. The article argues that the concepts of needs, mix and choice should be redefined in a way which reflects the interdependencies between them. Further, the article calls for more extensive mutual learning between studies of mainstream social housing and housing for people with intellectual disability.     

The Collapsing Choice Theory: Dissociating Choice and Judgment in Decision Making

Decision making theory in general, and mental models in particular, associate judgment and choice. Decision choice follows probability estimates and errors in choice derive mainly from errors in judgment. In the studies reported here we use the Monty Hall dilemma to illustrate that judgment and choice do not always go together, and that such a dissociation can lead to better decision-making. Specifically, we demonstrate that in certain decision problems, exceeding working memory limitations can actually improve decision choice. We show across four experiments that increasing the number of choice alternatives forces people to collapse choices together, resulting in better decision-making. While choice performance improves, probability judgments do not change, thus demonstrating an important dissociation between choice and probability judgments. We propose the Collapsing Choice Theory (CCT) which explains how working memory capacity, probability estimation, choice alternatives, judgment, and regret all interact and effect decision quality.      

“双循环”新发展格局:理论阐释与现实选择

中美贸易摩擦的持续、新冠肺炎疫情突发以及国际经济政治变局下的不确定性对全球经济贸易体系造成重大冲击。综合国内外形势的复杂变化和我国迈入新时代新发展阶段的内在要求,党中央做出了构建双循环新发展格局的重大战略部署。推动形成双循环新发展格局对国内国外经济发展具有重大重塑功能,双循环新发展格局的系统阐释需要明确其科学内涵、理论逻辑和现实选择,其历史渊源可以从新中国成立之初的艰辛探索追溯到当今时代的七个不同时期。加快构建双循环新发展格局,形成需求牵引供给、供给创造需求的更高水平动态平衡,需要坚持新发展理念,以更加开放的姿态集中力量办好国内的事,以系统思维坚持供给侧结构性改革战略方向,利用好国内国际两个市场与两种资源,以创新驱动战略和经济发展新模式新业态,确保国民经济循环体系中的生产、流通、消费、分配环节畅通协调。     

Devolution and Patient Choice: Policy Rhetoric versus Experience in Practice

Background: market reforms in England have been identified as making a clear distinction between English health policy and health policy in the devolved systems in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Patient choice is a high profile policy in the English National Health Service that constitutes significant changes to the demand side of health care. It is not clear what national differences this has led to regarding implementation of policy. This article presents the findings from a large UK‐wide study on the development and implementation of policies related to patient choice of provider. The findings reported here relate specifically to the policy development and organizational implementation of choice in order to examine the impact of devolution on health care policy. Aim: this study examines patient choice of provider across all four countries of the UK to understand the effect of differences in national policies on the organization and service how choice of provider presented to patients. Methods: at the macro‐level, we interviewed policymakers and examined policy and guidance documents to analyze the provenance and determinants of national policy in each UK nation. At the Primary Care Trust or Health Board level, we interviewed a range of public and private health service providers to identify the range of referral pathways and where and when choices might be made. Finally, we interviewed ear, nose and throat, and orthopaedics patients to understand how such choices were experienced. Findings: while we found that distinct rhetorical differences were identifiable at a national policy level, these were less visible at the level of service organization and the way choices were provided to patients. Conclusion: historical similarities in both the structure and operation of health care, coupled with common operational objectives around efficient resource use and waiting times, mediate how strategic policy is implemented and experienced in the devolved nations of the UK.