Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities

Eric Danan, Thibault Gajdos () and Jean-Marc Tallon

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Aggregation; vNM utility; indeterminacy; neutrality; utilitarianism; Agrégation; fonction d'utilité vNM; indétermination; neutralité; utilitarianisme (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00523448v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in 2010

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00523448v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Aggregating sets of von Neumann–Morgenstern utilities (2013)
Working Paper: Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities (2013)
Working Paper: Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities (2013)
Working Paper: Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities (2013)
Working Paper: Aggregating sets of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities (2010)
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:hal:cesptp:halshs-00523448

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().