Related papers: Deciding with Judgment
We can overcome uncertainty with uncertainty. Using randomness in our choices and in what we control, and hence in the decision making process, could potentially offset the uncertainty inherent in the environment and yield better outcomes.…
Bayesian evidence ratios give a very attractive way of comparing models, and being able to quote the odds on a particular model seems a very clear motivation for making a choice. Jeffreys' scale of evidence is often used in the…
When epidemiologic studies are conducted in a subset of the population, selection bias can threaten the validity of causal inference. This bias can occur whether or not that selected population is the target population, and can occur even…
One way to make decisions under uncertainty is to select an optimal option from a possible range of options, by maximizing the expected utilities derived from a probability model. However, under severe uncertainty, identifying precise…
Suppose you are told that taking a statin will reduce your risk of a heart attack or stroke by 3% in the next ten years, or that women have better emotional intelligence than men. You may wonder how accurate the 3% is, or how confident we…
Regression plays a key role in many research areas and its variable selection is a classic and major problem. This study emphasizes cost of predictors to be purchased for future use, when we select a subset of them. Its economic aspect is…
Many forecasts consist not of point predictions but concern the evolution of quantities. For example, a central bank might predict the interest rates during the next quarter, an epidemiologist might predict trajectories of infection rates,…
When making decisions under risk, people often exhibit behaviors that classical economic theories cannot explain. Newer models that attempt to account for these irrational behaviors often lack neuroscience bases and require the introduction…
We consider a random interval splitting process, in which the splitting rule depends on the empirical distribution of interval lengths. We show that this empirical distribution converges to a limit almost surely as the number of intervals…
The principle that rational agents should maximize expected utility or choiceworthiness is intuitively plausible in many ordinary cases of decision-making under uncertainty. But it is less plausible in cases of extreme, low-probability risk…
An agent acquires information dynamically until her belief about a binary state reaches an upper or lower threshold. She can choose any signal process subject to a constraint on the rate of entropy reduction. Strategies are ordered by "time…
We conduct an incentivized experiment on a nationally representative US sample \\ (N=708) to test whether people prefer to avoid ambiguity even when it means choosing dominated options. In contrast to the literature, we find that 55\% of…
Decision markets are mechanisms for selecting one among a set of actions based on forecasts about their consequences. Decision markets that are based on scoring rules have been proven to offer incentive compatibility analogous to properly…
The traditional axiomatic approach to voting is motivated by the problem of reconciling differences in subjective preferences. In contrast, a dominant line of work in the theory of voting over the past 15 years has considered a different…
That science and other domains are now largely data-driven means virtually unlimited opportunities for statisticians. With great power comes responsibility, so it's imperative that statisticians ensure that the methods being developing to…
Consider an investor trading dynamically to maximize expected utility from terminal wealth. Our aim is to study the dependence between her risk aversion and the distribution of the optimal terminal payoff. Economic intuition suggests that…
Econometricians have usefully separated study of estimation into identification and statistical components. Identification analysis, which assumes knowledge of the probability distribution generating observable data, places an upper bound…
For an investor with constant absolute risk aversion and a long horizon, who trades in a market with constant investment opportunities and small proportional transaction costs, we obtain explicitly the optimal investment policy, its implied…
All possible types of deterministic choice behavior are classified by their degree of irrationality. This classification is performed in three steps: (1) select a benchmark of rationality, for which this degree is zero; (2) endow the set of…
We present a novel variant of decision making based on the mathematical theory of separable Hilbert spaces. This mathematical structure captures the effect of superposition of composite prospects, including many incorporated intentions,…