On the Likelihood of Cyclic Comparisons

Ariel Rubinstein () and Uzi Segal

No 773, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: We investigate the procedure of "random sampling" where the alternatives are random variables. When comparing any two alternatives, the decision maker samples each of the alternatives once and ranks them according to the comparison between the two realizations. Our main result is that when applied to three alternatives, the procedure yields a cycle with a probability bounded above by 8/27. Bounds are also obtained for other related procedures.

Keywords: Transitivity; preference formation; the paradox of nontransitive dice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-04-27, Revised 2012-02-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-upt
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Journal Article: On the likelihood of cyclic comparisons (2012)
Working Paper: On the Likelihood of Cyclic Comparisons (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:773

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