Knightian Uncertainty, General Equilibrium Theory and Macroeconomics

该项目支持对奈特决策理论的经济影响的理论研究，奈特决策理论是一种不确定情况下的选择的替代公式。奈特决策理论解释了，拥有相同客观信息的不同个体如何将不同的主观概率赋予未知概率的事件。因此，该理论创建了一个连贯的框架，在这个框架中，拥有SMEA信息的个人可以在不确定的情况下对选择有不同的看法。意见的不同造成了个人之间主观信息的不对称，因为他们不知道彼此的意见。这项研究阐述了这样一种观点，即这些不对称性可能有助于解释重要的经济现象，如价格行为、裁员和罢工。该项目的最终目标是加深我们对一般均衡以及在一般均衡下可能出现的资源未充分利用的理解。它还对资源利用不足的可能补救措施进行了更深层次的理论分析。奈特的决策理论赋予了弗兰克·奈特对风险和不确定性的区分的行为学意义。根据这些定义，如果赌博结果的概率已知，则赌博是有风险的，而如果结果的概率未知，则不确定。这个项目对奈特决策理论的发展是一个重要的贡献，因为这个新理论解释了根据标准贝叶斯决策理论看起来不合理的许多不同类型的决策。这些问题包括某些市场未能提供保险，劳工和管理层的讨价还价行为导致了罢工和裁员，以及个人储蓄对利率变化的不敏感。

This project supports theoretical research on the economic implications of Knightian decision theory, an alternative formulation of choice under uncertainty. Knightian decision theory explains, among other things, how different individuals with the same objective information could attach different subjective probabilities to events of unknown probability. Thus, the theory creates a coherent framework in which individuals with the smae information could have different opinions about choices under uncertainty. The differences of opinion create asymmetries of subjective information among individuals, for they do not know each others' opinions. The research elaborates the view that these asymmetries may help explain important economic phenomena, such as price behavior, layoffs, and strikes. The ultimate goal of the project is to deepen our understanding of general equilibrium and the possible underemployment of resources in general equilibrium. It also provides a deeper theoretical anlysis of possible remedies for the underemployment of resources. Knightian decision theory gives behavioral significance to Frank Knight's distinction between risk and uncertainty. According to these definitions, a gamble is risky if the probabilities of its outcomes are known and it is uncertain if they are not known. The development of Knightian decision theory by this project is an important contribution because this new theory explains a number of different types of decisions that appear irrational according to standard Bayesian decision theory. These include the failure of certain markets to provide insurance, bargaining behavior of labor and management that produces strikes and layoffs and the insensitivity of personal saving to changes in interest rates.