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We study the learning problem of revealed preference in a stochastic setting: a learner observes the utility-maximizing actions of a set of agents whose utility follows some unknown distribution, and the learner aims to infer the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-06-06 John R. Birge , Xiaocheng Li , Chunlin Sun

This study proposes a tractable stochastic choice model to identify motivations for prosocial behavior, and to explore alternative motivations of deliberate randomization beyond ex-ante fairness concerns. To represent social preferences, we…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2023-05-01 Yosuke Hashidate , Keisuke Yoshihara

I study altruistic choices through the lens of a cognitively noisy decision-maker. I introduce a theoretical framework that demonstrates how increased cognitive noise can directionally affect altruistic decisions and put its implications to…

General Economics · Economics 2025-01-03 Niklas M. Witzig

Eliciting preferences from human judgements is inherently imprecise, yet most decision analysis methods force a single priority vector from pairwise comparisons, discarding the information embedded in inconsistencies. We instead leverage…

General Economics · Economics 2026-02-27 Salvatore Greco , Sajid Siraj , Michele Lundy

As large language models (LLMs) advance their capabilities, aligning these models with human preferences has become crucial. Preference optimization, which trains models to distinguish between preferred and non-preferred responses based on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-02 Shawn Im , Sharon Li

Stochastic systems with memory naturally appear in life science, economy, and finance. We take the modelling point of view of stochastic functional delay equations and we study these structures when the driving noises admit jumps. Our…

Probability · Mathematics 2016-06-01 D. R. Baños , F. Cordoni , G. Di Nunno , L. Di Persio , E. E. Røse

Determining consumer preferences and utility is a foundational challenge in economics. They are central in determining consumer behaviour through the utility-maximising consumer decision-making process. However, preferences and utilities…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-18 Marta Grzeskiewicz

Most social choice rules assume access to full rankings, while current alignment practice -- despite aiming for diversity -- typically treats voters as anonymous and comparisons as independent, effectively extracting only about one bit per…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2026-03-23 Luise Ge , Daniel Halpern , Gregory Kehne , Yevgeniy Vorobeychik

Given only aggregate choice data and limited information about how menus are distributed across the population, we describe what can be inferred robustly about the distribution of preferences (or more general decision rules). We strengthen…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2024-05-16 Larry G Epstein , Kaushil Patel

We consider the problem of learning the preferences of a heterogeneous population by observing choices from an assortment of products, ads, or other offerings. Our observation model takes a form common in assortment planning applications:…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2016-06-09 Nathan Kallus , Madeleine Udell

The random utility model (RUM, McFadden and Richter, 1990) has been the standard tool to describe the behavior of a population of decision makers. RUM assumes that decision makers behave as if they maximize a rational preference over a…

General Economics · Economics 2022-07-05 Victor H. Aguiar , Maria Jose Boccardi , Nail Kashaev , Jeongbin Kim

Can noise be beneficial to machine-learning prediction of chaotic systems? Utilizing reservoir computers as a paradigm, we find that injecting noise to the training data can induce a stochastic resonance with significant benefits to both…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-21 Zheng-Meng Zhai , Ling-Wei Kong , Ying-Cheng Lai

Choice modeling has been a central topic in the study of individual preference or utility across many fields including economics, marketing, operations research, and psychology. While the vast majority of the literature on choice models has…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-08-22 Zhongze Cai , Hanzhao Wang , Kalyan Talluri , Xiaocheng Li

Consumers discover their preferences through experience, yet the sequence and composition of those experiences are often designed by firms, digital platforms, or policymakers. We introduce a ``data-design'' framework for preference…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2026-04-17 Sebastiano Della Lena , Alessio Muscillo , Paolo Pin

In a typical optimization problem, the task is to pick one of a number of options with the lowest cost or the highest value. In practice, these cost/value quantities often come through processes such as measurement or machine learning,…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2022-07-20 Mohammad Mahdian , Jieming Mao , Kangning Wang

This paper introduces a novel stochastic control framework to enhance the capabilities of automated investment managers, or robo-advisors, by accurately inferring clients' investment preferences from past activities. Our approach leverages…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-05 Haoyang Cao , Zhengqi Wu , Renyuan Xu

Decision theory does not traditionally include uncertainty over utility functions. We argue that the a person's utility value for a given outcome can be treated as we treat other domain attributes: as a random variable with a density…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-01-18 Urszula Chajewska , Daphne Koller

Based on the heuristics that maintaining presumptions can be beneficial in uncertain environments, we propose a set of basic axioms for learning systems to incorporate the concept of prejudice. The simplest, memoryless model of a…

Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems · Physics 2007-05-23 Andreas U. Schmidt

We propose a general methodology for recovering preference parameters from data on choices and response times. Our methods yield estimates with fast ($1/n$ for $n$ data points) convergence rates when specialized to the popular Drift…

Theoretical Economics · Economics 2025-08-04 Federico Echenique , Alireza Fallah , Michael I. Jordan

A dynamic model of collective consumption and saving decisions made by a finite number of agents with constant but different discount rates is developed. Collective utility is a weighted sum of individual utilities with time-varying utility…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2018-07-18 Luis A. Alcala