A sure thing

Not a Sure Thing: Making Regulatory Choices

Harsanyi’s theorem without the sure-thing principle

We study a version of Harsanyi’s theorem (Harsanyi, 1955) in a framework involving uncertainty. Without assuming the sure-thing principle but sticking to consequentialism, we obtain that a Paretian social aggregation should be affine and that all decision makers must use additively separable preferences that resembles expected utilities. Whenever preferences are state independent, we find that ...

Conditioning and the Sure-Thing Principle

This paper undertakes a careful examination of the concept of conditional probability and its use. The ideas are then applied to resolve a conceptual puzzle related to Savage’s “Sure-Thing Principle.”

The Sure-thing Principle in Epistemic Terms

Savage (1954) introduced the sure-thing principle in terms of the dependence of decisions on knowledge, but gave up on formalizing it in epistemic terms for lack of a formal definition of knowledge. Using a standard model of knowledge, the partition model, we examine the sure-thing principle, presenting two ways to capture it. One is in terms of knowledge operators, which we call the principle ...

Reducing Child Poverty with Cash Transfers: A Sure Thing?

Children are disproportionately represented among the income-poor, many suffer from severe deprivation, and their poverty and vulnerability have cumulative and long-term consequences. This article provides a comparative examination of the poverty-reduction effectiveness of cash transfer programmes targeting children, focusing on three types of such programmes: the Child Support Grant in South A...