On the likelihood of cyclic comparisons

Ariel Rubinstein () and Uzi Segal

Journal of Economic Theory, 2012, vol. 147, issue 6, 2483-2491

Abstract: One problem caused by cycles of choice functions is indecisiveness—decision makers will be paralyzed when they face choice sets with more than two options. 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. We show that while this procedure may lead to violations of transitivity, the probability of such cycles is bounded from above by 827. Even lower bounds are obtained for some other related procedures.

Keywords: Transitivity; Preference formation; Paradox of nontransitive dice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C90 D01 D81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: 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:eee:jetheo:v:147:y:2012:i:6:p:2483-2491

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2012.05.005

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