Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior

Publication ,  Journal Article
Sadowski, P
Published in: Theoretical Economics
May 1, 2013

Following Kreps (1979), I consider a decision maker who is uncertain about her future taste. This uncertainty leaves the decision maker with a preference for flexibility: When choosing among menus that contain alternatives for future choice, she weakly prefers menus with additional alternatives. Standard representations that accommodate this choice pattern cannot distinguish tastes (indexed by a subjective state space) and beliefs (a probability measure over the subjective states) as different concepts. I allow choice between menus to depend on objective states. My axioms provide a representation that uniquely identifies beliefs, provided objective states are sufficiently relevant for choice. I suggest that this result can provide choice theoretic substance to the assumption, commonly made in the (incomplete) contracting literature, that contracting parties who know each others' ranking of contracts also share beliefs about each others' future tastes in the face of unforeseen contingencies. © 2013 Philipp Sadowski.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Theoretical Economics

DOI

EISSN

1555-7561

ISSN

1933-6837

Publication Date

May 1, 2013

Volume

8

Issue

2

Start / End Page

503 / 534

Related Subject Headings

  • Economic Theory
  • 3803 Economic theory
  • 3801 Applied economics
  • 1401 Economic Theory
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Sadowski, P. (2013). Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior. Theoretical Economics, 8(2), 503–534. https://doi.org/10.3982/TE884
Sadowski, P. “Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior.” Theoretical Economics 8, no. 2 (May 1, 2013): 503–34. https://doi.org/10.3982/TE884.
Sadowski P. Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior. Theoretical Economics. 2013 May 1;8(2):503–34.
Sadowski, P. “Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior.” Theoretical Economics, vol. 8, no. 2, May 2013, pp. 503–34. Scopus, doi:10.3982/TE884.
Sadowski P. Contingent preference for flexibility: Eliciting beliefs from behavior. Theoretical Economics. 2013 May 1;8(2):503–534.
Journal cover image

Published In

Theoretical Economics

DOI

EISSN

1555-7561

ISSN

1933-6837

Publication Date

May 1, 2013

Volume

8

Issue

2

Start / End Page

503 / 534

Related Subject Headings

  • Economic Theory
  • 3803 Economic theory
  • 3801 Applied economics
  • 1401 Economic Theory