SPEAKER:  Matthew Ryan (Economics)

 

DAY & TIME: 11am, 30 April

 

VENUE: OGGB Room 6115

 

TITLE: “Stochastic Choice and Expected Utility”

 

DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT:  This talk will survey some recent developments in the theory of probabilistic choice, a branch of decision theory that treats the act of choice as inherently stochastic.  Much of this theory has applications in econometrics.  For example, McFadden’s logit model is based on a famous result by R. D. Luce.  Most stochastic choice models are probabilistic extensions of models of utility over deterministic objects.  Two recent papers (one by Dagsvik in Mathematical Social Sciences in 2008, and another by Gul and Pesendorfer in Econometrica in 2006) extend these ideas to choice amongst gambles, obtaining stochastic versions of expected utility.  This talk will mostly discuss the contribution by Dagsvik.  I hope to give a follow-up talk to the MSS Group later in May, which will discuss an alternative proof of one of Dagsvik’s results.