THE AMBIGUITY AVERSION LITERATURE: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
THE AMBIGUITY AVERSION LITERATURE: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
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DOI：
10.1017/s026626710999023x
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发表时间：
2009-11-01
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
Weinstein, Jonathan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Al-Najjar, Nabil I.;Weinstein, Jonathan
我们对歧义厌恶文献进行了批判性评估，我们认为埃尔斯伯格选择是对歧义的理性反应，可以通过放松萨维奇的确定原则和增加歧义厌恶假设来解释。首先，承认埃尔斯伯格选择是理性的，会导致对无关沉没成本的敏感或对信息的厌恶等行为，而这些行为在大多数经济学家看来是荒谬或非理性的。其次，我们认为，在歧义厌恶文献中被称为“信念”的数学对象与经济学家或博弈论家如何理解和使用这一概念几乎没有关系。这是因为缺乏一个有用的更新概念。第三，埃尔斯伯格选择的异常现象可以简单地解释，而且不需要篡改选择理论的基础。当决策者形成启发式时，这些选择就会出现，启发式在现实生活中很好地服务于可能性可操纵的情况，并将其错误地应用于实验环境。
We provide a critical assessment of the ambiguity aversion literature, which we characterize in terms of the view that Ellsberg choices are rational responses to ambiguity, to be explained by relaxing Savage's Sure-Thing principle and adding an ambiguity-aversion postulate. First, admitting Ellsberg choices as rational leads to behaviour, such as sensitivity to irrelevant sunk cost, or aversion to information, which most economists would consider absurd or irrational. Second, we argue that the mathematical objects referred to as "beliefs" in the ambiguity aversion literature have little to do with how an economist or game theorist understands and uses the concept. This is because of the lack of a useful notion of updating. Third, the anomaly of the Ellsberg choices can be explained simply and without tampering with the foundations of choice theory. These choices can arise when decision makers form heuristics that serve them well in real-life situations where odds are manipulable, and misapply them to experimental settings.