We study the behavior of an agent who dislikes large choice sets because of the ‘cost of thinking’ involved in choosing from them. Focusing on preferences over lotteries of menus, we introduce the notion of Thinking Aversion. We characterize preferences as the difference between an affine...

We study an individual who faces a dynamic decision problem in which the process of information arrival is unobserved by the analyst. We elicit subjective information directly from choice behavior by deriving two utility representations of preferences over menus of acts. One representation...

Let X be a compact, or path-connected, metric space whose topological dimension is at least 2. We show that there does not exist a continuous choice function (i.e., single-valued choice correspondence) defined on the collection of all finite feasible sets in X. Not to be void of content,...

We consider a formal approach to comparative risk aversion and apply it to intertemporal choice models. This allows us to ask whether standard classes of utility functions, such as those inspired by Kihlstrom and Mirman (1974) [16], Selden (1978) [27], Epstein and Zin (1989) [10] and Quiggin...

We introduce a nonparametric method to compare risk aversion of different investors based on revealed preference methods. Using Yaari's (1969) [50] definition of “more risk averse than”, we show that it is sufficient to compare the revealed preference relations of two investors. This makes...

In the framework of dynamic choice under uncertainty, we define dynamic stability as a combination of two assumptions prevalent in the literature: dynamic consistency and the requirement that updated preferences have the same “structure” as ex ante ones. Dynamic stability also turns out to...

We study identification of combinatorial valuations from aggregate demand. Each utility function takes as arguments subsets or, alternatively, quantities of the multiple goods. We exploit mathematical insights from auction theory to generically identify the distribution of utility functions. In...

We present necessary and sufficient revealed preference conditions to verify whether a finite data set on nonlinear budget sets is consistent with the maximization of a quasi-concave utility function. When budget sets are finite unions of polyhedral convex sets, these conditions require...

This paper discusses the incentive to bundle when consumer valuations are non-additive and/or when products are supplied by separate sellers. Whether integrated or separate, a firm has an incentive to introduce a bundle discount when demand for the bundle is more elastic than the overall demand...

Partial equilibrium analysis has a conceptual dilemma that its object should be negligibly small in order to be free from income effect but then the consumer does not care for it and the notion of willingness to pay for it does not make sense. In the setting of a continuum of commodities, we...