A Characterization of Sequential Rationalizability

Miguel Ballester and Jose Apesteguia

No 345, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: A choice function is sequentially rationalizable if there is an ordered collection of asymmetric binary relations that identifies the selected alternative in every choice problem. We propose a property, F-consistency, and show that it characterizes the notion of sequential rationalizability. F-consistency is a testable property that highlights the behavioral aspects implicit in sequentially rationalizable choice. Further, our characterization result provides a novel tool with which to study how other behavioral concepts are related to sequential rationalizability, and establish a priori unexpected implications. In particular, we show that the concept of rationalizability by game trees, which, in principle, had little to do with sequential rationalizability, is a refinement of the latter. Every choice function that is rationalizable by a game tree is also sequentially rationalizable. Finally, we show that some prominent voting mechanisms are also sequentially rationalizable.

Keywords: consistency; bounded rationality; individual rationality; Rationalizability; behavioral economics; Voting. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 D01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://bw.bse.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/1345-file.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A characterization of sequential rationalizability (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:345

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bruno Guallar ().