This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter addresses the classical questions of utility representation and maximization. It relaxes the notion of weak upper continuity(Campbell and Walker) to obtain a property called partial weak upper continuity and shows that both maximization of preferences and representation by a utility function can be achieved under this new property.
The rest of this dissertation focuses on extending revealed preference theory to accommodate behavioral anomalies observed in the experimental data. In particular, I offer a framework to expand the theory of revealed preferences to the case where a DM's choice is not completely identified with a single preferences.
In Chapter 2, I use a divide and conquer procedure in order to expand the revealed preference theory to accommodate behavioral anomalies such as attraction effect, compromise effect, and reverse dominance effect. These effects are induced when a third alternative is used as a "decoy" to change the relative ranking from a pair. Therefore, they could be rationalized using the notion of referenced preferences: that is, when the pairwise preference between a pair of alternatives is referenced when a third alternative. I model such behavior as a partially rational inductive divide and conquer procedure where the deviation from WARP only take place on tripletons where references operate. Keeping the rational choice axioms on sets with higher cardinalities retains the predictive power in the classical theory to the extent possible. In order to do this, I assume a DM only drops reference elements when facing more than one such elements in a set. I show that under this particular division rule the choice is characterized via simple majority rule over the collection of referenced preference.
In Chapter 3, I consider a variation of the results in Chapter 2 where in dividing a set of alternative in an inductive manner, the DM considers all possible first-diminished subsets. I show that such division rule results in a more sophisticated behavior than the simple majority rule. Here the DM uses here referenced preferences over the pairwise preference in a consecutive manner to squeeze the choice problem.
This, indeed is an extension of the rational short-list method in Manzini and Mariotti (2007) with three preference. The distinction, however, is that the method is enogenized in this set up.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Economics
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Revealed preference theory
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_9151
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (88 pages) : illustrations
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Seyed Hassan Nosratabadi
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore10001600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.