Utility Theories: Measurements and Applications

Utility Theories: Measurements and Applications

Author: Ward Edwards

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9401129525

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The Conference on "Utility: Theories, Measurements, and Applications" met at the Inn at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, California, from June II to 15, 1989. The all-star cast of attendees are listed as authors in the Table of Contents of this book (see p. V), except for Soo Hong Chew and Amos Tversky. The purpose of the conference, and of National Science Foundation Grant No. SES-8823012 that supported it, was to confront proponents of new generalized theories of utility with leading decision analysts com mitted to the implementation, in practice, of the more traditional theory that these new theories reject. That traditional model is variously iden tified in this book as expected utility or subjectively expected utility maximization (EU or SEU for short) and variously attributed to von Neumann and Morgenstern or Savage. I had feared that the conference might consist of an acrimonious debate between Olympian normative theorists uninterested in what people actually do and behavioral modelers obsessed with the cognitive illusions and uninterested in helping people to make wise decisions. I was entirely wrong. The conferees, in two dramatic straw votes at the open ing session, unanimously endorsed traditional SEU as the appropriate normative model and unanimously agreed that people don't act as that model requires. (These votes had a profound impact on my thinking; detail about them and about that impact is located in Chapter 10.


Measurement Theory: Volume 7

Measurement Theory: Volume 7

Author: Fred S. Roberts

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1984-12-28

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0521302277

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This book provides an introduction to measurement theory for non-specialists and puts measurement in the social and behavioural sciences on a firm mathematical foundation. Results are applied to such topics as measurement of utility, psychophysical scaling and decision-making about pollution, energy, transportation and health. The results and questions presented should be of interest to both students and practising mathematicians since the author sets forth an area of mathematics unfamiliar to most mathematicians, but which has many potentially significant applications.


Decision Science and Technology

Decision Science and Technology

Author: James Shanteau

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1461550890

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Decision Science and Technology is a compilation of chapters written in honor of a remarkable man, Ward Edwards. Among Ward's many contributions are two significant accomplishments, either of which would have been enough for a very distinguished career. First, Ward is the founder of behavioral decision theory. This interdisciplinary discipline addresses the question of how people actually confront decisions, as opposed to the question of how they should make decisions. Second, Ward laid the groundwork for sound normative systems by noticing which tasks humans can do well and which tasks computers should perform. This volume, organized into five parts, reflects those accomplishments and more. The book is divided into four sections: `Behavioral Decision Theory' examines theoretical descriptions and empirical findings about human decision making. `Decision Analysis' examines topics in decision analysis.`Decision in Society' explores issues in societal decision making. The final section, `Historical Notes', provides some historical perspectives on the development of the decision theory. Within these sections, major, multi-disciplinary scholars in decision theory have written chapters exploring some very bold themes in the field, as an examination of the book's contents will show. The main reason for the health of the Decision Analysis field is its close links between theory and applications that have characterized it over the years. In this volume, the chapters by Barron and Barrett; Fishburn; Fryback; Keeney; Moreno, Pericchi, and Kadane; Howard; Phillips; Slovic and Gregory; Winkler; and, above all, von Winterfeldt focus on those links. Decision science originally developed out of concern with real decision problems; and applied work, such as is represented in this volume, will help the field to remain strong.


Behavioral Decision Theory

Behavioral Decision Theory

Author: Kazuhisa Takemura

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-29

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 9811654530

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This book is the second edition of Behavioral Decision Theory, published in 2014. The main approach and structure of this book have been retained in the new edition. However, this second edition provides a fresh overview of the idea of behavioral decision theory and related research findings such as theoretical and empirical discoveries of preference formation, time discounting, social interaction, and social decision making. The book covers a wide range from classical to relatively recent major studies concerning behavioral decision theory, which, in brief, is a general term for descriptive theories to explain the psychological knowledge related to people’s decision-making behavior. It is called a theory but is actually a combination of various psychological theories, for which no axiomatic systems—such as those associated with the utility theory widely used in economics—have been established. The utility theory is often limited to qualitative knowledge; however, as the studies of Nobel laureates H. A. Simon, D. Kahneman, and R. Thaler have suggested, the psychological methodology and knowledge of behavioral decision theory have been applied widely in such fields as economics, business administration, and engineering and are expected to become even more useful in the future. Research into people’s decision making represents an important part in those fields, various aspects of which overlap with the scope of behavioral decision theory. This theory is closely related to behavioral economics and behavioral finance, which have come into greater use in recent years. This book will appeal especially to graduate students, advanced undergraduate students, and researchers who are interested in decision-making phenomena.


Choice, Decision, and Measurement

Choice, Decision, and Measurement

Author: A.A.J. Marley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-05-23

Total Pages: 489

ISBN-13: 1317729412

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This volume is the result of a conference held at the University of California, Irvine, on the topics that provide its title -- choice, decision, and measurement. The conference was planned, and the volume prepared, in honor of Professor R. Duncan Luce on his 70th birthday. Following a short autobiographical statement by Luce, the volume is organized into four topics, to each of which Luce has made significant contributions. The book provides an overview of current issues in each area and presents some of the best recent theoretical and empirical work. Personal reflections on Luce and his work begin each section. These reflections were written by outstanding senior researchers: Peter Fishburn (Preference and Decision Making), Patrick Suppes (Measurement Theory and Axiomatic Systems), William J. McGill (Psychophysics and Reaction Time), and W.K. Estes (Choice, Identification and Categorization). The first section presents recent theoretical and empirical work on descriptive models of decision making, and theoretical results on general probabilistic models of choice and ranking. Luce's recent theoretical and empirical work on rank- and sign-dependent utility theory is important in many of these contributions. The second section presents results from psychophysics, probabilistic measurement, aggregation of expert opinion, and test theory. The third section presents various process oriented models, with supportive data, for tasks such as redundant signal detection, forced choice, and absolute identification. The final section contains theory and data on categorization and attention, and general theoretical results for developing and testing models in these domains.


Elicitation

Elicitation

Author: Luis C. Dias

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-11-16

Total Pages: 542

ISBN-13: 3319650521

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This book is about elicitation: the facilitation of the quantitative expression of subjective judgement about matters of fact, interacting with subject experts, or about matters of value, interacting with decision makers or stakeholders. It offers an integrated presentation of procedures and processes that allow analysts and experts to think clearly about numbers, particularly the inputs for decision support systems and models. This presentation encompasses research originating in the communities of structured probability elicitation/calibration and multi-criteria decision analysis, often unaware of each other’s developments. Chapters 2 through 9 focus on processes to elicit uncertainty from experts, including the Classical Method for aggregating judgements from multiple experts concerning probability distributions; the issue of validation in the Classical Method; the Sheffield elicitation framework; the IDEA protocol; approaches following the Bayesian perspective; the main elements of structured expert processes for dependence elicitation; and how mathematical methods can incorporate correlations between experts. Chapters 10 through 14 focus on processes to elicit preferences from stakeholders or decision makers, including two chapters on problems under uncertainty (utility functions), and three chapters that address elicitation of preferences independently of, or in absence of, any uncertainty elicitation (value functions and ELECTRE). Two chapters then focus on cross-cutting issues for elicitation of uncertainties and elicitation of preferences: biases and selection of experts. Finally, the last group of chapters illustrates how some of the presented approaches are applied in practice, including a food security case in the UK; expert elicitation in health care decision making; an expert judgement based method to elicit nuclear threat risks in US ports; risk assessment in a pulp and paper manufacturer in the Nordic countries; and elicitation of preferences for crop planning in a Greek region.


Utility of Gains and Losses

Utility of Gains and Losses

Author: R. Duncan Luce

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 1135662703

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This new monograph presents Dr. Luce's current understanding of the behavioral properties people exhibit (or should exhibit) when they make selections among alternatives and how these properties lead to numerical representations of those preferences. It summarizes, and places in historical perspective, the research Dr. Luce has done on utility theory for over 10 years. Included are axiomatic theoretical formulations, experiments designed to test individual assumptions, and analyses of the fit to bodies of data of numerical representations derived from the theory.


Foundations of Multiattribute Utility

Foundations of Multiattribute Utility

Author: Ali E. Abbas

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-06-28

Total Pages: 703

ISBN-13: 1107150906

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Learn state-of-the-art methods for making logically sound decisions when faced with multiple conflicting objectives and uncertainty.


Probability in Economics

Probability in Economics

Author: Omar Hamouda

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 1135084750

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Notions of probability and uncertainty have been increasingly prominant in modern economics. This book considers the philosophical and practical difficulties inherent in integrating these concepts into realistic economic situations. It outlines and evaluates the major developments, indicating where further work is needed. This book addresses: * probability, utility and rationality within current economic thought and practice * concepts of ignorance and indeterminancy * experimental economics * econometrics, with particular reference inference and estimation.