Choice Under Uncertainty
In the expected utility theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern, four axioms together imply that individuals act in situations of risk as if they maximize the expected value of a utility function. One of the axioms is a version of the IIA axiom:
- If, then for any and ,
where p is a probability and means that M is preferred over L. This axiom says that if one outcome (or lottery ticket) L is considered to be not as good as another (M), then having a chance with probability p of receiving L rather than N is considered to be not as good as having a chance with probability p of receiving M rather than N.
Read more about this topic: Local Independence Of Irrelevant Alternatives
Famous quotes containing the words choice and/or uncertainty:
“But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the way-side as we walk; in a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says,—”Thus hast thou done, but it were better thus.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It was your severed image that grew sweeter,
That floated, wing-stiff, focused in the sun
Along uncertainty and gales of shame
Blown out before I slept. Now you are one
I dare not think alive: only a name
That chimes occasionally, as a belief
Long since embedded in the static past.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)