Preferences under ignorance

Preferences under ignorance — International Economic Review, 60: 241-257, 2019
Authors

Olivier Gossner

Christoph Kuzmics

Abstract

A decision maker (DM) makes choices from different sets of alternatives. The DM is initially ignorant of the payoff associated with each alternative, and learns these payoffs only after a large number of choices have been made. We show that, in the presence of an outside option, once payoffs are learned, the optimal choice rule from sets of alternatives can be rationalized by a DM with strict preferences over all alternatives. Under this model, the DM has preferences for preferences while being ignorant of what preferences are “right”.

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International Economic Review, 60: 241-257, 2019

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{gossner2019,
  author = {Gossner, Olivier and Kuzmics, Christoph},
  title = {Preferences Under Ignorance},
  journal = {International Economic Review},
  date = {2019},
  url = {https://gossner.me/papers/preferences-under-ignorance.html},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {A decision maker (DM) makes choices from different sets of
    alternatives. The DM is initially ignorant of the payoff associated
    with each alternative, and learns these payoffs only after a large
    number of choices have been made. We show that, in the presence of
    an outside option, once payoffs are learned, the optimal choice rule
    from sets of alternatives can be rationalized by a DM with strict
    preferences over all alternatives. Under this model, the DM has
    preferences for preferences while being ignorant of what preferences
    are “right”.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Gossner, Olivier, and Christoph Kuzmics. 2019. “Preferences Under Ignorance.” International Economic Review. https://gossner.me/papers/preferences-under-ignorance.html.