Remarks on the consumer problem under incomplete preferences

This article revisits the standard results of demand theory when the preference relation is a continuous preorder that admits an equicontinuous multi-utility representation. We study the consumer problem as the constrained maximization of a continuous vector-valued utility mapping, and show how to rederive those results. In particular, we provide a link between the literature on vector optimization and the analysis of the consumer problem under incomplete preferences.     

对马克思主义哲学研究的反思与前瞻——全国“辩证唯物主义研究会理论研讨会”综述

马克思主义哲学与社会主义历史命运”理论研讨会 ,在新中国成立五十周年之际召开。研讨会回顾了我国五十年来发展的历史 ,从哲学上总结经验教训 ,展望未来发展 ,探讨建设有中国特色社会主义的重大理论和实际问题 :并总结五十年来马克思主义哲学发展的经验教训 ,展望马克思主义哲学在新世纪的发展趋势     

Resolving the Trust Predicament: A Quantum Game-theoretic Approach

Developing a good theoretical understanding of the role of trust in IR (such as in the events leading to the end of the Cold War) is still an open problem. Most game-theoretic studies of trust do not go beyond the limitations of an (ontologically) individualistic paradigm, thus assuming a pre-defined set of individual strategies. Yet, it is a fact that the predicament of collective trust is empirically resolved in many situations. This paper suggests a new game-theoretic approach—Quantum Game Theory (QGT)—to understand and explain how the predicament of trust is resolved. In a quantum game of trust the actors play the game by simultaneously collectively reconstructing the strategic environment in such a way as to become mutually strategically entangled. Quantum strategic entanglement allows trust to emerge between the two actors without assuming a need for signaling, prior “contract” type of arrangement, or any form of third-party communication. The paper develops and solves such a model of quantum game of trust     

Relative Risk Aversion: What Do We Know?

The relative risk aversion measure that represents the risk preferences of a decision maker depends on the outcome variable that is used as the argument of the utility function, and on the way that outcome variable is defined or measured. In addition, the relationship between any two such relative risk aversion measures is determined by the relationship between the corresponding outcome variables. These well-known facts are used to adjust several reported estimates of relative risk aversion so that those estimates can be directly compared with one another. After adjustment, the significant variation in the reported relative risk aversion measures for representative decision makers is substantially reduced. JEL Classification: D81     

Explaining Diversities in Age-Specific Life Expectancies and Values of Life Saving: A Numerical Analysis

To what extent can life protection account for observed diversities in age-specific life expectancies across individuals and over time? We provide answers via calibrated simulations of a life-cycle model where life’s end is stochastic, and age-specific mortality hazards are endogenous outcomes of life protection, set jointly with life insurance and annuities. Our model links mortality hazards and values of life saving (VLS) as “dual variables”, and offers new insights about the measurement of VLS. Life protection is estimated to account for non-trivial portions of observed levels and inequalities in life expectancies and empirical estimates of VLS by age and education, and over time.     

Infinite Exchange Problems

This paper considers a range of infinite exchange problems, including one recent example discussed by Barrett and Arntzenius, and propose a general taxonomy based on cardinality considerations and the possibility of identifying and tracking the units of exchange.     

Investigating Risky Choices Over Losses Using Experimental Data

We conduct a battery of experiments in which agents make choices from several pairs of all-loss-lotteries. Using these choices, we estimate a representation of individual preferences over lotteries. We find statistically and economically significant departures from expected utility maximization for many subjects. We also estimate a preference representation based on summary statistics for behavior in the population of subjects, and again find departures from expected utility maximization. Our results suggest that public policies based on an expected utility approach could significantly underestimate preferences and willingness to pay for risk reduction.JEL Classification: C91, D81     

Updating Subjective Risks in the Presence of Conflicting Information: An Application to Climate Change

Willingness to support public programs for risk management often depends on individual subjective risk perceptions in the face of uncertain science. As part of a larger study concerning climate change, we explore individual updated subjective risks as a function of individual priors, the nature of external information, and individual attributes. We examine several rival hypotheses about how subjective risks change in the face of new information (Bayesian updating, alarmist learning, and ambiguity aversion). The source and nature of external information, as well as its collective ambiguity, can have varying effects across the population, in terms of both expectations and uncertainty.JEL Classification  D8, Q51, Q54     

Smoking Restrictions as a Self-Control Mechanism

Using data from Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements spanning 1992–2002, this study shows that smokers who plan to quit smoking are more supportive of regulations than are other smokers. Failed quitters who plan to try again are more supportive of restrictions than are smokers planning to quit for the first time. These findings indicate that many smokers support regulatory restrictions to reduce their costs of quitting by exploiting the discipline offered by regulatory control. From 1992 to 2002, support for smoking restrictions in public areas rose dramatically among both nonsmokers and smokers.JEL Classification: I180, I120, H000     

A Learning-Efficiency Explanation of Structure in Language

This paper proposes a learning-efficiency explanation of modular structure in language. An optimal grammar arises as the solution to the problem of learning a language from a minimal number of observations of instances of the use of the language. Agents face symmetry constraints that limit their ability to make a priori distinctions among symbols used in the language and among objects (interpreted as facts, events, speakers intentions) that are to be represented by messages in the language. It is shown that if it is commonly known that the object space is modular and messages are strings, then modularity of the language is sufficient and (essentially) necessary for learning efficiency. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: C72.I am grateful to Hsueh-Ling Huynh, Bart Lipman, Ariel Rubinstein and Birger Wernerfelt for stimulating discussions and comments. Many thanks are due to the anonymous referee for suggestions that have helped to improve the focus and presentation of the paper. I have benefitted from comments by seminar participants at Arizona State University, Boston University, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Pittsburgh, the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), the Midwest Mathematical Economics Meetings, and the Summer in Tel Aviv (SITA). This research was supported by a Grant from the National Science Foundation.