Probabilities in Economic Modeling

Economic modeling assumes, for the most part, that agents are Bayesian, that is, that they entertain probabilistic beliefs, objective or subjective, regarding any event in question. We argue that the formation of such beliefs calls for a deeper examination and for explicit modeling. Models of belief formation may enhance our understanding of the probabilistic beliefs when these exist, and may also help up characterize situations in which entertaining such beliefs is neither realistic nor necessarily rational.

[1]  T. Bewley Knightian decision theory. Part I , 2002 .

[2]  Kiyohiko G. Nishimura,et al.  Search and Knightian uncertainty , 2004, J. Econ. Theory.

[3]  F. J. Anscombe,et al.  A Definition of Subjective Probability , 1963 .

[4]  A. Rustichini,et al.  Ambiguity Aversion, Robustness, and the Variational Representation of Preferences , 2006 .

[5]  F. Knight The economic nature of the firm: From Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit , 2009 .

[6]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[7]  Edi Karni,et al.  A Definition of Subjective Probabilities with State-Dependent Preferences , 1993 .

[8]  D. Schmeidler Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity , 1989 .

[9]  B. D. Finetti La prévision : ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives , 1937 .

[10]  I. Gilboa,et al.  Maxmin Expected Utility with Non-Unique Prior , 1989 .

[11]  M. Marinacci,et al.  A Smooth Model of Decision Making Under Ambiguity , 2003 .

[12]  S. Werlang,et al.  Uncertainty Aversion, Risk Aversion, and the Optimal Choice of Portfolio , 1992 .

[13]  T. Fine,et al.  The Emergence of Probability , 1976 .

[14]  T. Sargent,et al.  Robust Permanent Income and Pricing , 1999 .

[15]  T. Sargent,et al.  Acknowledging Misspecification in Macroeconomic Theory , 2001 .

[16]  G. Shafer Savage revisited , 1990 .

[17]  Itzhak Gilboa,et al.  Fact-Free Learning , 2004 .

[18]  L. J. Savage,et al.  The Foundations of Statistics , 1955 .

[19]  P. Slovic,et al.  Reversals of preference between bids and choices in gambling decisions. , 1971 .

[20]  I. Gilboa,et al.  Rationality of belief or: why savage’s axioms are neither necessary nor sufficient for rationality , 2008, Synthese.

[21]  Itzhak Gilboa,et al.  Rationality of Belief. Or Why Bayesianism is Neither Necessary Nor Sufficient for Rationality , 2004 .

[22]  Jacques Dreze,et al.  Les fondements logiques de l'utilité cardinale et de la probabilité subjective , 1961 .

[23]  Dov Samet,et al.  Probabilities as Similarity-Weighted Frequencies , 2004 .

[24]  D. Ellsberg Decision, probability, and utility: Risk, ambiguity, and the Savage axioms , 1961 .

[25]  Itzhak Gilboa,et al.  A theory of case-based decisions , 2001 .

[26]  Edi Karni,et al.  On State-Dependent Prefer-ences and Subjective Probabilities , 1983 .

[27]  Itzhak Gilboa,et al.  Rationality of Belief , 2004 .