Whittemore (1978) conjectured that an N-dimensional contingency table p is strictly collapsible over each factor with respect to the set of remaining factors if and only if p has a certain factorization. I prove this conjecture for N = 3 and show by counterexamples that it is false for N> 3.

A decision maker needs to give his subjective probability for a single event of interest, A. Being aware that he has little substantive knowledge of the factors affecting A, the decision maker asks an expert for advice. The expert gives his subjective probability for A. In the light of this...