Utility Theories: Measurements and Applications

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Review

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Properties of Utility Theories and Related Empirical Phenomena

      • L. Robin Keller

      Pages 3-23

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3. The Old Time Religion and Its Implementation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

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   2. In Praise of the Old Time Religion

      • Ronald A. Howard

      Pages 27-55

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   3. On the Foundations of Prescriptive Decision Analysis

      • Ralph L. Keeney

      Pages 57-72

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   4. Generic Analysis of Utility Models

      • John M. Miyamoto

      Pages 73-106

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4. Generalized Utility is not Normative

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 107-107

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   2. Small Worlds and Sure Things: Consequentialism by the Back Door

      • Irving H. LaValle

      Pages 109-136

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   3. What Now for Generalized Utility Theory?

      • Rakesh K. Sarin

      Pages 137-163

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   4. The Independence Axiom Versus the Reduction Axiom: Must We Have Both?

      • Uzi Segal

      Pages 165-183

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5. What Should Descriptive Decision Models Look Like? What Do They Describe?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 185-185

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   2. Rational Versus Plausible Accounting Equivalences in Preference Judgments

      • R. Duncan Luce

      Pages 187-206

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   3. Recent Tests of Generalizations of Expected Utility Theory

      • Colin F. Camerer

      Pages 207-251

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   4. Toward the Demise of Economic Man and Woman; Bottom Lines from Santa Cruz

      • Ward Edwards

      Pages 253-267

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6. Discussion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 269-269

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   2. Old and New Roles for Expected and Generalized Utility Theories

      • Thomas Eppel, David Matheson, John Miyamoto, George Wu, Stuart Eriksen

      Pages 271-294

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7. Back Matter

   Pages 295-300

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The Conference on "Utility: Theories, Measurements, and Applications" met at the Inn at Pasatiempo in Santa Cruz, California, from June II to 15, 1989. The all-star cast of attendees are listed as authors in the Table of Contents of this book (see p. V), except for Soo Hong Chew and Amos Tversky. The purpose of the conference, and of National Science Foundation Grant No. SES-8823012 that supported it, was to confront proponents of new generalized theories of utility with leading decision analysts com­ mitted to the implementation, in practice, of the more traditional theory that these new theories reject. That traditional model is variously iden­ tified in this book as expected utility or subjectively expected utility maximization (EU or SEU for short) and variously attributed to von Neumann and Morgenstern or Savage. I had feared that the conference might consist of an acrimonious debate between Olympian normative theorists uninterested in what people actually do and behavioral modelers obsessed with the cognitive illusions and uninterested in helping people to make wise decisions. I was entirely wrong. The conferees, in two dramatic straw votes at the open­ ing session, unanimously endorsed traditional SEU as the appropriate normative model and unanimously agreed that people don't act as that model requires. (These votes had a profound impact on my thinking; detail about them and about that impact is located in Chapter 10.

• calculus
• decision analysis
• utility
• utility theory

• Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California, USA

  Ward Edwards

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