Collaborative Research in Decision, Risk, and Management Science: Utility Theories with Joint Receipts and Reference Levels

9308959卢斯在有关个人面对风险和不确定性的理性决策理论--从技术上讲，主观预期效用理论--的近40年经验中，得出了两个坚定的结论。心理学家主要强调的一点是，这类模型虽然总体上相当具有描述性，但未能描述许多实验和现实世界中实际行为的某些关键方面。另一个主要由经济学家和决策分析师强调的是，SEU模型的公理在规范上非常有说服力，而且该模型在许多应用场合都被证明是有用的。认识到经典模型的描述性失败和规范实用性，PI探索了实验者和应用决策分析师的共同点，试图发现这两个部分的确切位置，并寻求既满足实验关注又满足应用期望的规范性理论。与SEU一样，这一新理论--技术上的秩号依赖效用(RSDU)理论--(公理上)基于相当简单、相当令人信服的潜在行为原则，也像SEU一样，它产生了加权平均值的数字表示，但与SEU不同的是，权重不是概率，它们的值不仅取决于潜在的偶然事件，而且取决于相关结果是得还是失。这一理论的基础是区别对待一个事件，这取决于它是与相对于现状的收益还是损失相关的，并纳入了共同接收的概念--同时获得两个或更多东西--这允许明确、简单地描述该理论的根本非理性。本项目研究了几个尚未解决的理论、实验和应用问题：在理论方面，虽然RSDU是一个相当好的选择行为描述性理论，但它需要进行修改，以适应当使用判断确定性等价而不是选择程序时发生的违反其公理的情况。在经验方面，该项目除其他外，审查了泰勒关于两件或两件以上物品联合接收的效用的规则；RSDU背后的准理性假设的描述性有效性；根据选择集构建参考水平(当地现状)；以及围绕现状聚集收益和损失的替代组合规则。关于应用问题，我们相信，现状在决策中发挥着重要作用，因此，非常需要发展明确依赖现状的规范性理论。此外，该项目将调查符号依赖效用作为一种规范性理论的局限性和潜在陷阱。***

9308959 Luce Almost forty years of experience with theories about rational decision making on the part of individuals confronting risk and uncertainty -- technically, subjective expected utility theories (SEU) -- has led to two firm conclusions. One, stressed primarily by psychologists, is that this class of models, while overall fairly descriptive, fails to describe certain crucial aspects of actual behavior in many experimental and real world situations. The other, stressed primarily by economists and decision analysts, is that the axioms of the SEU model are normatively very compelling and the model has proved useful in numerous applied situations. Recognizing both the descriptive failure and normative usefulness of the classical model, the PIs have explored the common ground held by both the experimentalists and the applied decision analysts, attempted to discover exactly where the two part company, and sought a prescriptive theory that satisfies both experimental concerns and applied expectations. Like SEU this new theory -- technically rank- and sign-dependent utility (RSDU) theory -- is based (axiomatically) on fairly simple, quite compelling, underlying behavioral principles, and also like SEU, it results in a numerical representation as a weighted average, but unlike SEU the weights are not probabilities and their values depend not only on the underlying chance event but on whether the associated outcome is a gain or a loss. Fundamental to the theory is the differential treatment of an event depending on whether it is associated to a gain or a loss relative to a status quo and the incorporation of the concept of joint receipt -- of getting two or more things at the same time -- that allows an explicit, simple characterization of the fundamental non-rationality of the theory. This project examines several theoretical, experimental, and applied issues that remain unresolved: On the theoretical side, while RSDU is a fairly good descriptive theory of choice behavior, it needs modification to accommodate the violations of its axioms which occur when judged certainty equivalents are used rather than choice procedures. On the empirical side, the project examines, among other things, Thaler's rule for the utility of the joint receipt of two or more things; the descriptive validity of the quasi-rational assumptions underlying RSDU; the construction of a reference level (local status quo) in terms of the choice set; and alternative combination rules for the aggregation of gains and losses around the status quo. Regarding applied issues, we are convinced that the status quo plays an important role in decision making and so it is highly desirable to develop prescriptive theories that depend explicitly on it. In addition, the project will investigate the limitations and potential pitfalls of sign dependent utility as a prescriptive theory. ***