Revealed preference and indifferent selection

It is shown that preferences can be constructed from observed choice behavior in a way that is robust to indifferent selection (i.e., the agent is indifferent between two alternatives but, nevertheless, is only observed selecting one of them). More precisely, a suggestion by Savage (1954) to reveal indifferent selection by considering small monetary perturbations of alternatives is formalized and generalized to a purely topological framework: references over an arbitrary topological space can be uniquely derived from observed behavior under the assumptions that they are continuous and nonsatiated and that a strictly preferred alternative is always chosen, and indifferent selection is then characterized by discontinuity in choice behavior. Two particular cases are then analyzed: monotonic preferences over a partially ordered set, and preferences representable by a continuous pseudo-utility function.Revealed preference, indifference, choice behavior, continuity, nonsatiation, monotonicity, pseudo-utility

Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities

We analyze the aggregation problem without the assumption that individuals and society have fully determined and observable preferences. More precisely, we endow individuals ans society with sets of possible von Neumann-Morgenstern utility functions over lotteries. We generalize the classical neutrality assumption to this setting and characterize the class of neutral social welfare function. This class turns out to be considerably broader for indeterminate than for determinate utilities, where it basically reduces to utilitarianism. In particular, aggregation rules may differ by the relationship between individual and social indeterminacy. We characterize several subclasses of neutral aggregation rules and show that utilitarian rules are those that yield the least indeterminate social utilities, although they still fail to systematically yield a determinate social utility.Aggregation; vNM utility; indeterminacy; neutrality; utilitarianism

Reply to a Commentary "Asking photons where they have been without telling them what to say"

Interesting objections to conclusions of our experiment with nested interferometers raised by Salih in a recent Commentary are analysed and refuted.Comment: Published version (Frontiers in Physics) to revised version of the Commentar

Indecisiveness aversion and preference for commitment

We present an axiomatic model of preferences over menus that is motivated by three assumptions. First, the decision maker is uncertain ex ante (i.e. at the time of choosing a menu) about her ex post (i.e. at the time of choosing an option within her chosen menu) preferences over options, and she anticipates that this subjective uncertainty will not resolve before the ex post stage. Second, she is averse to ex post indecisiveness (i.e. to having to choose between options that she cannot rank with certainty). Third, when evaluating a menu she discards options that are dominated (i.e. inferior to another option whatever her ex post preferences may be) and restricts attention to the undominated ones. Under these assumptions, the decision maker has a preference for commitment in the sense of preferring menus with fewer undominated alternatives. We derive a representation in which the decision maker's uncertainty about her ex post preferences is captured by means of a subjective state space, which in turn determines which options are undominated in a given menu, and in which the decision maker fears, whenever indecisive, to choose an option that will turn out to be the worst (undominated) one according to the realization of her ex post preferences.Opportunity sets, subjective uncertainty, indecisiveness, dominance

Généalogie d’une question

L’auteur se penche sur la façon dont la question de l’action s’est posée à lui dans sa propre écriture dramatique. En rupture avec la prééminence de la fable, c’est le mouvement qui s’impose comme étant la forme même de l’action : mouvement intérieur que le théâtre cherche à rendre visible, et qui est celui, dans son imprévisibilité, de l’écriture en quête du sens. C’est sur les potentialités scéniques, elles-mêmes imprévisibles, de ce mouvement que viendra s’articuler l’écriture du plateau : une écriture seconde, aussi corporelle que dans la danse, mais pouvant faire naître « fable » et personnages dans l’imaginaire du spectateur.Drawing upon his own body of creative work, Danan explores the ways in which action intervenes in the writing process. Breaking with the pre-eminence of plot, it is movement that imposes itself as the very form of action; interior movement that theatre seeks to render visible and which, in its unforseeability, is writing in search of meaning. It is on the scenic possibilities, themselves unforeseeable, of this movement that stage writing is articulated, a second type of writing, as corporeal as dance, yet able to conjure plot and character within the imagination of the spectator

Indecisiveness aversion and preference for commitment

We present a system of behavioral axioms for preferences over menus that is motivated by three assumptions. First, the decision maker is uncertain ex ante (i.e. at the time of choosing a menu) about her ex post (i.e. at the time of choosing an option within her chosen menu) preferences over options, and she anticipates that this subjective uncertainty will only resolve after the ex post stage. Second, she is averse to ex post indecisiveness (i.e. to having to choose between options that she cannot rank with certainty). Third, when evaluating a menu she discards options that are dominated (i.e. inferior to another option whatever her ex post preferences may be) and restricts attention to the undominated ones. Under these assumptions, the decision maker has a preference for commitment in the sense of preferring menus with fewer undominated alternatives. We derive a representation in which the decision maker's uncertainty about her ex post preferences is captured by means of a subjective state space, which in turn determines which options are undominated in a given menu, and in which the decision maker fears, whenever indecisive, to choose an option that will turn out to be the worst (undominated) one according to the realization of her ex post preferences.Opportunity sets, subjective uncertainty, indecisiveness, dominance