Allais, Ellsberg, and Preferences for Hedging

Mark Dean and Pietro Ortoleva

No 2012-2, Working Papers from Brown University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the relation between ambiguity aversion and the Allais paradox. To this end, we introduce a novel de nition of hedging which applies to objective lotteries as well as to uncertain acts, and we use it to de ne a novel axiom that captures a preference for hedging which generalizes the one of Schmeidler (1989). We argue how this generalized axiom captures both aversion to ambiguity, and attraction towards certainty for objective lotteries. We show that this axiom, together with other standard ones, is equivalent to to two representations both of which generalize the MaxMin Expected Utility model of Gilboa and Schmeidler (1989). In both, the agent reacts to ambiguity using multiple priors, but does not use expected utility to evaluate objective lotteries. In our rst representation, the agent treats objective lotteries as `ambiguous objects,' and use a set of priors to evaluate them. In the second, equivalent representation, lotteries are evaluated by distorting probabilities as in the Rank-Dependent Utility model, but using the worst from a set of such distortions. Finally, we show how a preference for hedging is not sucient to guarantee an Ellsberg-like behavior if the agent violate expected utility for objective lotteries. We then provide an axiom that guarantees that this is the case, and nd an associated representation in which the agent rst maps acts to an objective lottery using the worst of the priors in a set; then evaluates this lottery using the worst distortion from a set of concave Rank-Dependent Utility functionals.

Keywords: Ambiguity Aversion; Allais Paradox; Ellsberg Paradox; Hedging; Multiple Priors; Subjective Mixture; Probability Weighting; Rank Dependent Expected Utility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Allais, Ellsberg, and preferences for hedging (2017)
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