Implicit Preferences Inferred from Choice

Graphic Images: from Implicit Meaning to Inferred Sense

Two texts published in Formats 1 (“The initial guidelines and borders of visual play”) and Formats 2 (“Informative noncompliance and audiovisual communication”) analyze in detail the conceptual relations that occur in visual discourse between observation, with its iconicity of structures in the real world, and comprehension, which refers to symbolic objects. They also attempt to pursue the noti...

Estimating Risk Preferences from Deductible Choice

We estimate the distribution of risk preferences using a large data set of deductible choices in auto insurance contracts. To do so, we develop a structural econometric model of adverse selection that allows for unobserved heterogeneity in both risk (claim rate) and risk aversion. We use data on realized claims to estimate the distribution of claim rates and data on deductible and premium choic...

Utilities , Preferences and Choice

Implicit commitment in theory choice

The proper evaluation of a theory’s virtues seems to require taking into account what the theory is indirectly or implicitly committed to, in addition to what it explicitly says. Most extant proposals for criteria of theory choice in the literature spell out the relevant notion of implicit commitment via some notion of entailment. I show that such criteria behave implausibly in application to t...

Collective choice under dichotomous preferences

Agents partition deterministic outcomes into good or bad. A direct revelation mechanism selects a lottery over outcomes — also interpreted as time-shares. Under such dichotomous preferences, the probability that the lottery outcome be a good one is a canonical utility representation. The utilitarian mechanism averages over all deterministic outcomes “approved” by the largest number of agents. I...