Collaborative Research: Substantive and Procedural Rationality in Decisions Under Uncertainty

合作研究：不确定性下决策的实体和程序合理性

• 批准号: 0616501
• 负责人: Douglas Gale
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-01 至 2008-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0616501&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Substantive; Procedural; Rationality

This project aims to generate and analyze data for understanding choice under uncertainty in the laboratory. In contrast to earlier work, the purpose is not to uncover violations of particular theories, but rather to provide a positive account of choice under uncertainty in a rich choice environment that allows for a general characterization of the patterns of individual behavior. To characterize an individual's decision-making under uncertainty, it is necessary to generate many observations per subject over a wide range of choice sets. An innovative graphical interface was developed for this purpose, where subjects see on a computer screen a geometrical representation of a portfolio choice problem involving two (or three) risky assets. Subjects choose portfolios through a simple 'point-and-click.' This intuitive and user-friendly interface allows for the quick and efficient elicitation of many decisions per subject under a wide range of choice scenarios.Preliminary findings with these data suggest that subjects' behavior is consistent in the sense that choices "maximize" a consistent set of preferences; it is emphasized that this test does not rely on any particular theory of choice under uncertainty, but is rather a more fundamental test of rationality. The next task is to characterize the (consistent) patterns in choice behavior. This is done in two ways. First, as a descriptive exercise, it is useful to study whether subjects use identifiable heuristics ("rules of thumb") to make their decisions. Inspection of the data generated by the two-asset experiment suggests that there are indeed common heuristics that govern many subjects' choices.Second, in order to connect this heuristic approach in making choices to substantive rationality, a type mixture model (TMM) is estimated. The TMM predicts an individual's choice of heuristics by assuming that the individual is attempting to imperfectly maximize his underlying (consistent) preferences. Preliminary results with the two-asset model suggest that the TMM is effective in describing subjects' behaviors. An analogous methodology will be applied to studying choice over three risky assets and to the study of choice under ambiguity, that is, choice when the "true" probabilities are not known.This project will develop the necessary tools, both methodological and analytical, for providing a comprehensive individual-level analysis of decision-making under uncertainty. Two distinctive features of the broader project are the new experimental design, and the application of the tools of the theory of consumer demand to individual decision-making in the laboratory.Broader Impact: Decisions under uncertainty enter every realm of economic decision-making, so fundamental contributions to this area will have broad-reaching implications. Further, the experimental platform and analytical techniques that have been developed and will be refined through this project can be applied to many types of individual choice problems. More elaborate versions of the experimental method currently under development will allow for interaction between subjects. All experiments and programs for analysis will be made publicly available through the web.

该项目旨在生成和分析数据，以理解实验室中不确定性下的选择。 与早期的工作相比，其目的不是要揭示特定理论的违反，而是在一个丰富的选择环境中，在不确定性下提供一个积极的选择帐户，允许个人行为模式的一般特征。 为了描述个人在不确定性下的决策特征，有必要在广泛的选择集上为每个受试者生成许多观察结果。 一个创新的图形界面，开发了这个目的，在计算机屏幕上看到一个几何表示的投资组合选择问题，涉及两个（或三个）风险资产。 受试者通过简单的“点击”来选择作品集。“这种直观和用户友好的界面允许在各种选择场景下快速有效地引导每个受试者做出许多决定。这些数据的初步发现表明，受试者的行为是一致的，因为选择“最大化”了一组一致的偏好;需要强调的是，这一检验并不依赖于任何特定的不确定条件下的选择理论，而是一种更基本的理性检验。 下一个任务是描述选择行为中的（一致的）模式。 这是通过两种方式完成的。 首先，作为一个描述性的练习，研究受试者是否使用可识别的经验（“经验法则”）来做出他们的决定是有用的。 对两种资产实验产生的数据的检验表明，确实存在支配许多受试者选择的启发式方法。其次，为了将这种启发式方法与实质理性联系起来，我们估计了一个类型混合模型（TMM）。 TMM通过假设个人试图不完美地最大化他的潜在（一致）偏好来预测个人的选择。 双资产模型的初步结果表明，TMM是有效的描述主体的行为。 将采用类似的方法研究对三种风险资产的选择，并研究在模糊情况下的选择，即在“真实”概率未知的情况下的选择，本项目将开发必要的方法和分析工具，对不确定情况下的决策进行全面的个人分析。 该项目的两个显著特点是新的实验设计和将消费者需求理论的工具应用于实验室中的个人决策。更广泛的影响：不确定性下的决策进入经济决策的各个领域，因此对这一领域的基本贡献将产生广泛的影响。此外，实验平台和分析技术，已经开发，并将通过这个项目进行完善，可以应用于许多类型的个人选择问题。目前正在开发的实验方法的更精细版本将允许受试者之间的互动。所有实验和分析程序将通过网络公开提供。