Choice deferral, indecisiveness and preference for flexibility

Leonardo Pejsachowicz () and Séverine Toussaert
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Leonardo Pejsachowicz: Princeton University
Séverine Toussaert: Department of Social Policy - LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science

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Abstract: In a standard model of menu choice, we examine the behavior of an agent who applies the following Cautious Deferral rule: "Whenever in doubt, don't commit; just leave options open." Our primitive is a complete preference relation ≽ that represents the agent's choice behavior. The agent's indecisiveness is captured by means of a possibly incomplete (but otherwise rational) preference relation . We ask when ≽ can be viewed as a Cautious Deferral completion of some incomplete . Under the independence and continuity assumptions commonly used in the menu choice literature, we find that even the smallest amount of indecisiveness is enough to force ≽, through the above deferral rule, to exhibit preference for flexibility on its entire domain. Thus we highlight a fundamental tension between non-monotonic preferences, such as preferences for self-control, and tendency to defer choice due to indecisiveness.

Keywords: Incomplete preferences; Preference for flexibility; Choice deferral (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-07
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02862199
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Journal of Economic Theory, 2017, 170, pp.417-425. ⟨10.1016/j.jet.2017.05.001⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02862199

DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2017.05.001

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