Probability Models for Economic Decisions, second edition

Probability Models for Economic Decisions, second edition PDF

Author: Roger B. Myerson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-12-17

Total Pages: 569

ISBN-13: 0262355604

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An introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risk and economic decisions, using spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty. This textbook offers an introduction to the use of probability models for analyzing risks and economic decisions. It takes a learn-by-doing approach, teaching the student to use spreadsheets to represent and simulate uncertainty and to analyze the effect of such uncertainty on an economic decision. Students in applied business and economics can more easily grasp difficult analytical methods with Excel spreadsheets. The book covers the basic ideas of probability, how to simulate random variables, and how to compute conditional probabilities via Monte Carlo simulation. The first four chapters use a large collection of probability distributions to simulate a range of problems involving worker efficiency, market entry, oil exploration, repeated investment, and subjective belief elicitation. The book then covers correlation and multivariate normal random variables; conditional expectation; optimization of decision variables, with discussions of the strategic value of information, decision trees, game theory, and adverse selection; risk sharing and finance; dynamic models of growth; dynamic models of arrivals; and model risk. New material in this second edition includes two new chapters on additional dynamic models and model risk; new sections in every chapter; many new end-of-chapter exercises; and coverage of such topics as simulation model workflow, models of probabilistic electoral forecasting, and real options. The book comes equipped with Simtools, an open-source, free software used througout the book, which allows students to conduct Monte Carlo simulations seamlessly in Excel.

Collective Decision-Making:

Collective Decision-Making: PDF

Author: Norman Schofield

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 9401587671

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In the last decade the techniques of social choice theory, game theory and positive political theory have been combined in interesting ways so as to pro vide a common framework for analyzing the behavior of a developed political economy. Social choice theory itself grew out of the innovative attempts by Ken neth Arrow (1951) and Duncan Black (1948, 1958) to extend the range of economic theory in order to deal with collective decision-making over public goods. Later work, by William Baumol (1952), and James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock (1962), focussed on providing an "economic" interpretation of democratic institutions. In the same period Anthony Downs (1957) sought to model representative democracy and elections while William Riker (1962) made use of work in cooperative game theory (by John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern, 1944) to study coalition behavior. In my view, these "rational choice" analyses of collective decision-making have their antecedents in the arguments of Adam Smith (1759, 1776), James Madison (1787) and the Marquis de Condorcet (1785) about the "design" of political institutions. In the introductory chapter to this volume I briefly describe how some of the current normative and positive aspects of social choice date back to these earlier writers.

Multiperson Decision Making Models Using Fuzzy Sets and Possibility Theory

Multiperson Decision Making Models Using Fuzzy Sets and Possibility Theory PDF

Author: J. Kacprzyk

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 9400921098

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Decision making is certainly a very crucial component of many human activities. It is, therefore, not surprising that models of decisions play a very important role not only in decision theory but also in areas such as operations Research, Management science, social Psychology etc . . The basic model of a decision in classical normative decision theory has very little in common with real decision making: It portrays a decision as a clear-cut act of choice, performed by one individual decision maker and in which states of nature, possible actions, results and preferences are well and crisply defined. The only compo nent in which uncertainty is permitted is the occurence of the different states of nature, for which probabilistic descriptions are allowed. These probabilities are generally assumed to be known numerically, i. e. as single probabili ties or as probability distribution functions. Extensions of this basic model can primarily be conceived in three directions: 1. Rather than a single decision maker there are several decision makers involved. This has lead to the areas of game theory, team theory and group decision theory. 2. The preference or utility function is not single valued but rather vector valued. This extension is considered in multiattribute utility theory and in multicritieria analysis. 3.

Collective Decision Making

Collective Decision Making PDF

Author: Shmuel Nitzan

Publisher: CUP Archive

Published: 1985-11-28

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9780521303262

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This book provides an economic approach to the study of collective decision making. In Social Choice theory, the main problem of collective decision making is normally conceived of as one of aggregating diverse individual preferences. However, in practice, objectives are often common to the individuals - whether, for instance, in the firm, or where a medical diagnosis is required - but the information available to each individual, and their ability to utilise that information optimally, differ. The authors therefore deal with a different problem of decisional skills aggregation assuming homogeneous preferences but differing decisional skills, and develop a framework for the study of collective decision making. They examine the effect of the size of the decision making body; incomplete information on decisional skills; interdependence among decisions; shadow prices of decision rules; and of decision making costs and benefits on optimal group decision making. The model is then illustrated in a range of different fields, including industrial organisation, labour economics and in the design of consulting schemes, medical diagnostic systems, and corporate law.

Voting and Collective Decision-Making

Voting and Collective Decision-Making PDF

Author: Annick Laruelle

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-09-11

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1139474294

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Every day thousands of decisions are made by all kinds of committees, parliaments, councils and boards by a 'yes-no' voting process. Sometimes a committee can only accept or reject the proposals submitted to it for a decision. On other occasions, committee members have the possibility of modifying the proposal and bargaining an agreement prior to the vote. In either case, what rule should be used if each member acts on behalf of a different-sized group? It seems intuitively clear that if the groups are of different sizes then a symmetric rule (e.g. the simple majority or unanimity) is not suitable. The question then arises of what voting rule should be used. Voting and Collective Decision-Making addresses this and other issues through a study of the theory of bargaining and voting power, showing how it applies to real decision-making contexts.

Behavioral Social Choice

Behavioral Social Choice PDF

Author: Michel Regenwetter

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-05-15

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780521536660

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Behavioral Social Choice looks at the probabilistic foundations of collective decision-making rules. The authors challenge much of the existing theoretical wisdom about social choice processes, and seek to restore faith in the possibility of democratic decision-making. In particular, they argue that worries about the supposed prevalence of majority rule cycles that would preclude groups from reaching a final decision about what alternative they prefer have been greatly overstated. In practice, majority rule can be expected to work well in most real-world settings. They provide new insights into how alternative model specifications can change our estimates of social orderings.

Individual and Small Group Decisions

Individual and Small Group Decisions PDF

Author: K.J. Radford

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1475720688

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ecision making is one of the most important activities in both our profes D sional and our private lives today. The literature on the subject has grown considerably over the last fifty years and it now covers many different approaches to the subject. These approaches range from that of creating a mathematical model of the decision situation under consideration, as in operations research and other forms of mathematical decision analysis, to those that are based on human and organizational behavior. Recently, those working in the field have begun to combine approaches to the study of decision situations that arise in organizations, in our personal lives and in the communities in which we live. This book is an attempt to assist those concerned with decision making to work with this combination of approaches. In the past, decision problems have been considered according to the condi tions under which they arise and to some extent in terms of the approaches available for their resolution. Writers on the subject who are mathematically oriented have devised a method of classifying decisions based on the type of mathematics that they suggest be used in the resolution of the problems. This approach leads to the division of decision situations into the categories of cer tainty, uncertainty, risk and competition. Deterministic models available in oper ations research have then been offered as the means of treating decision situations in the category of certainty.

Probabilistic Voting Theory

Probabilistic Voting Theory PDF

Author: Peter J. Coughlin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992-10-30

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0521360528

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Coughlin provides the most comprehensive and integrated analysis of probabilistic voting models available, also developing further his important contributions. Probabilistic voting theory is the mathematical theory of candidate behavior in or in anticipation of elections in which candidates are unsure what voters' preferences will be on all or most issues, which is true of most governmental elections. The theory asks first whether optimal candidate strategies can be determined, given uncertainty about voter preferences, and if so, what exactly those strategies are, given various circumstances. It allows the theorist to predict what public policies will be supported and what laws passed by elected officials when in office and what positions will be taken by them when running in elections. One of the leading contributors to this rapidly developing literature, which is at the leading edge of public choice theory, Coughlin both reviews the existing literature and presents new results that unify and extend developments in the theory that have been scattered in the literature.

Outlooks and Insights on Group Decision and Negotiation

Outlooks and Insights on Group Decision and Negotiation PDF

Author: Bogumił Kamiński

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2015-06-11

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 3319195158

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This book constitutes the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Group Decision and Negotiation, GDN 2015, held in Warsaw, Poland, in June 2015. The GDN meetings aim to bring together researchers and practitioners from a wide spectrum of fields, including economics, management, computer science, engineering, and decision science. From a total of 119 submissions, 32 papers were accepted for publication in this volume. The papers are organized into topical sections on group problem structuring and negotiation, negotiation and group processes, preference analysis and decision support, formal models, voting and collective decision making, conflict resolution in energy and environmental management, negotiation support systems and studies, online collaboration and competition, and market mechanisms and their users.