Essays on Economic Behavior Under Uncertainty

✍ Scribed by Michael Balch, Daniel McFadden, S. Wu

• Publisher: American Elsevier Publishing Company, Inc.
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 448
• Edition: Hardcover
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

"In addition to an introductory essay, this volume is roughly divided into three parts. Part 1 comprises two papers that deal with the conceptual development of the conditional expected utility framework. Part 2 includes five papers on various micro-aspects of behavior under uncertainty. The five papers in part 3 are concerned with welfare economics and general equilibrium. The last paper, as indicated by its title, was originally a comment on the Kesten—Stigum paper. Since it also provides an excellent discussion on uncertainty and on the problem of modeling an appropriate equilibrium concept, we felt that by making it the last paper, it would also serve as a concluding remark for the volume."

✦ Table of Contents

• Preface
• List of contributors
• "Chapter 1. Some Introductory Remarks On Behavior Under Uncertainty", M. Balch and S. Wu
  1.1. Introduction
  1.2. Behavioral determinants
  1.3. Structural responses to uncertainty
  Part 1
• "Chapter 2. On The Foundations Of Decision Making Under Uncertainty", Peter C. Fishburn
  2.1. Introduction
  2.2. Act-event pairs
  2.3. Extraneous probabilities and mixture sets
  2.4. The basic model
  2.5. Finitely additive probability measures
  2.6. Measurable and bounded conditional acts
• Comments: "On recent developments in subjective expected utility", Michael Balch
• "Chapter 3. Subjective Expected Utility For Conditional Primitives", Michael Balch and Peter C. Fishburn
  3.1. Introduction
  3.2. Theory core
  3.3. Theory closure
• Comments:
  -- "The interpretation of conditional expected-utility theories", David H. Krantz and R. Duncan Luce
  -- "Frameworks for preference", Richard C. Jeffrey
  -- "Remarks on ‘Subjective expected utility for conditional primitives’", Ethan D. Bolker
  -- "Some comments on some axioms for decision making under uncertainty", John W. Pratt
  -- Reply to comments
  Part 2
• "Chapter 4. Ventures, Bets And Initial Prospects", Clifford Hildreth
  4.1 Introduction
  4.2 Utility of gain
  4.3 A possible decomposition
  4.4 One-dimensional families of ventures
  4.5 Bets
  4.6 To bet or not to bet
  4.7 Example I: a specialty crop
  4.8 Example II: a merchant
  4.9 Example III: a patient
  4.10. Example IV: fixed money income
• Comments:
  -- "On ‘Ventures, bets and initial prospects’", James C. Hickman
  -- "On some facets of betting", Daniel McFadden
• "Chapter 5. Stochastic Dominance In Choice Under Uncertainty", Josef Hadar and William Russell
  5.1. Introduction
  5.2. Basic definitions and properties
  5.3. Stochastic dominance and preference
  5.4. Applications
  5.5. Conclusion
• Comments:
  -- "On ‘Stochastic dominance in choice under uncertainty’", Koichi Hamada
  -- "On ‘Stochastic dominance in choice under uncertainty’", Gerald L. Nordquist
• "Chapter 6. Consumption And Portfolio Choices With Transaction Costs", Robin Mukherjee and Edward Zabel
  6.1. Introduction
  6.2. A model of consumption and portfolio choice
  6.3. Fixed transaction cost — portfolio choice
  6.4. Fixed transaction cost — the consumption policy
  6.5. Conclusions
  6.6 Appendix: An alternative formulation of the fixed transaction cost model
• Comments:
  -- "On ‘Consumption and portfolio choices with transaction costs’", Hayne E. Leland
  -- "On consumer consumption and portfolio decisions with transactions costs", Stephen A. Ross
• "Chapter 7. The Economics Of Queues: A Brief Survey", David Levhari and Eytan Sheshinski
  7.1. Introduction
  7.2. The Naor model
  7.3. Optimum bribing model
  7.4. Optimization in queues without priorities
  7.5. Queues with priorities
• Comments: "On ‘The economics of queues: a brief survey’", Warren J. Boe
• "Chapter 8. On The Economic Theory Of Agency And The Principle Of Similarity", Stephen A. Ross
  8.1. Introduction
  8.2. Basic problem
  8.3. Similarity, efficiency, and linearity
  8.4. Properties of fee schedule under similarity
  8.5. Properties of fee schedule under efficiency
  8.6. Conclusion
  8.7. Appendix
• Comments: "On the theory of economic agency", Leonard Mirman
  Part 3
• "Chapter 9. Notes On Welfare Economics, Information And Uncertainty", J. A. Mirrlees
  9.1. Introduction
  9.2. Redistribution and risk-taking
  9.3. The characterization of households
  9.4. The consumer’s information
  9.5 Appendix
• Comments: "Notes on welfare economics, information and uncertainty", Peter Diamond
• "Chapter 10. Preexisting Contracts And Temporary General Equilibrium", Jerry Green
  10.1. Introduction
  10.2. Previous work on preexisting contracts
  10.3. Codes of conduct and non-economic penalties in general equilibrium models
  10.4. The model
  10.5. Individual behavior
  10.6. Equilibrium
  10.7. Conclusion
• Comments:
  -- "On preexisting contracts and temporary equilibria", Bernt P. Stigum
  -- Reply to comments
• "Chapter 11. Competitive Resource Allocation Over Time Under Uncertainty", Bernt P. Stigum
  11.1. Introduction
  11.2. Statement of results
  11.3. Conclusion
  11.4. Appendix: Proofs of theorems 11.1—11.4
• Comments: "On sequences of temporary equilibrium", John O. Ledyard
• "Chapter 12. Balanced Growth Under Uncertainty In Decomposable Economies", Harry Kesten and Bernt P. Stigum
  12.1. Introduction and statement of results
  12.2. Auxiliary lemmas
  12.3. A basic convergence theorem
  12.4. Proofs of theorems 12.1 and 12.2
• Comments:
  -- "Balanced growth under uncertainty in decomposable economies", Roy Radner
  -- "On the application spectrum for the Kesten—Stigum theory", Michael Balch
• "Chapter 13. The Kesten-Stigum Model And The Treatment Of Uncertainty In Equilibrium Theory", Mordecai Kurz
  13.1. Introduction
  13.2. Review of the Kesten—Stigum theory
  13.3. Exogenous vs. endogenous uncertainties
  13.4. Endogenous uncertainty and its consequences
  13.5. Uncertainty and expectations: a search for a new equilibrium concept
• Bibliography
• Appendix
• Author Index
• Subject Index

✦ Subjects

economics, decision theory, subjective expected utility, expected utility, welfare economics, general equilibrium, portfolio theory, queues, bankruptcy, principal-agent problem, contracting, Kesten-Stigum theory