Marciano Siniscalchi

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at Northwestern University

We provide a simple proof of a key element of the characterization of recursive maxmin preferences in Epstein and Schneider (J Econ Theory 113:1–31, 2003).

The phenomena of ambiguity and ambiguity aversion, introduced in Daniel Ellsberg’s seminal 1961 article, are ubiquitous in the real world and violate both the key rationality axioms and classic models of choice under uncertainty. In particular, they violate the hypothesis that individuals’ uncertain beliefs can be represented by subjective probabil...

This paper analyzes risk sharing in economies with no aggregate uncertainty when agents have non-convex preferences. In particular, agents need not be globally risk-averse, or uncertainty-averse in the sense of Schmeidler (1989). We identify a behavioral condition under which betting is inefficient (i.e., every Pareto-efficient allocation provides...

Foundations for iterated admissibility (i.e., the iterated removal of weakly dominated strategies) need to confront a fundamental challenge. On the one hand, admissibility requires that a player consider every strategy of their opponents possible. On the other hand, reasoning that the opponents are rational requires ruling out certain strategies. B...

Epistemic game theory formalizes assumptions about rationality and mutual beliefs in a formal language, then studies their behavioral implications in games. Specifically, it asks: what do different notions of rationality and different assumptions about what players believe about.. .what others believe about the rationality of players imply regardin...

This paper considers local and global multiple-prior representations of ambiguity for preferences that are (i) monotonic, (ii) Bernoullian, i.e. admit an affine utility representation when restricted to constant acts, and (iii) locally Lipschitz continuous. We do not require either Certainty Independence or Uncertainty Aversion. We show that the se...

This paper analyzes preferences in the presence of ambiguity that are rational in the sense of satisfying the classical ordering condition as well as monotonicity. Under technical conditions that are natural in an Anscombe–Aumann environment, we show that even for such a general preference model, it is possible to identify a set of priors, as first...

This paper proposes and axiomatizes a recursive version of the vector expected utility (VEU) decision model (Siniscalchi, 2009). Recursive VEU preferences are dynamically con-sistent and "consequentialist." Dynamic consistency implies standard Bayesian updating of the baseline (reference) prior in the VEU representation, but imposes no constraint o...

This paper provides a multiple-priors representation of ambiguous beliefs � la Ghirardato, Maccheroni, and Marinacci (2004) and Nehring (2002) for any preference that is (i) monotonic, (ii) Bernoullian, i.e. admits an affine utility representation when restricted to constant acts, and (iii) suitably continuous. Monotonicity is the main substantive...

Al-Najjar and Weinstein (2009) propose to scrutinize the implications of recent theories of ambiguity in dynamic settings. They conclude that such implications are so unreasonable as to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the theories under consideration. The present paper argues that the seemingly unreasonable implications highlighted by Al-Najjar an...

We propose a simple theoretical model of supervised learning that is potentially useful to interpret a number of empirical phenomena relevant to the nature-nurture debate. The model captures a basic trade-off between sheltering the child from the consequences of his mistakes and allowing him to learn from experience. We characterize the optimal par...

Modelling what each agent believes about her opponents, what she believes her opponents believe about her, and so on, plays a prominent role in game theory and its applications. This article describes Harsanyi’s formalism of type spaces, which provides a simple, elegant representation of probabilistic belief hierarchies. A special emphasis is place...

Experimental evidence strongly suggests that subjects facing a decision under uncertainty often find it difficult to assess the relative likelihood of certain events; decision theorists deem such events ‘ambiguous’. Furthermore, subjects generally dislike options (acts) whose final outcome depends upon the realization of such ambiguous events; that...

This paper analyzes a model of decision under ambiguity, deemed vector expected utility or VEU. According to the proposed model, an act f, mapping states of nature to prizes, is evaluated via the sum of (1) a baseline expected-utility term, and (2) an ambiguity-adjustment term. The adjustment term may be interpreted as reflecting the variability of...

We adopt an interactive epistemology perspective to analyse dynamic games with partially unknown payoff functions. We consider solution procedures that iteratively delete strategies conditional on private information about the state of nature. In particular we focus on a weak and a strong version of the Δ-rationalizability solution concept, where Δ...

This paper analyzes sophisticated dynamic choice for ambiguity-sensitive decision makers. It characterizes Consistent Planning via axioms on preferences over decision trees. Furthermore, it shows how to elicit conditional preferences from prior preferences. The key axiom is a weakening of Dynamic Consistency, deemed Sophistication. The analysis acc...

This article introduces the symposium on model uncertainty and robustness.

Recent decision theories represent ambiguity via multiple priors, interpreted as alternative probabilistic models of the relevant uncertainty. This paper provides a robust behavioral foundation for this interpretation. A prior P is “plausible” if preferences over some subset of acts admit an expected utility representation with prior P, but not wit...

We discuss a class of markets for durable goods where efficiency (or approximate efficiency) is obtained despite the presence of information asymmetries. In the model, the number of times a good has changed hands (the vintage of the good) is an accurate signal of its quality, each consumer self-selects into obtaining the vintage that the social pla...

We analyze the consequences of strategically sophisticated bidding without assuming equilibrium behavior. In particular, we characterize interim rationalizable bids in symmetric first-price auctions with interdependent values and affiliated signals. We show that (1) every nonzero bid below the equilibrium is rationalizable, (2) some bids above the...

We analyze a family of extensive-form solution procedures for games with incomplete information that do not require the specification of an epistemic type space a la Harsanyi, but can accommodate a (commonly known) collection of explicit restrictions D on first-order beliefs. For any fixed D we obtain a solution called D-rationalizability. In stati...

We provide a unified epistemic analysis of some forward-induction solution concepts in games with complete and incomplete information. We suggest that forward induction reasoning may be usefully interpreted as a set of assumptions governing the players' belief revision processes, and define a notion of strong belief to formalize these assumptions....

A characterization of “generalized Bayesian updating” in a maxmin expected utility setting is provided. The key axioms are consequentialism and constant-act dynamic consistency. The latter requires that, if an arbitrary act f is preferred (inferior) to a constant act y conditional upon E, and if f dominates (is dominated by) y pointwise on the comp...

We provide a behavioral foundation to the notion of `mixture' of acts, which is used to great advantage in the decision setting introduced by Anscombe and Aumann [1]. Our construction allows one to formulate mixture-space axioms even in a fully subjective setting, without assuming the existence of randomizing devices. This simplifies the task of de...

We study the possibility of achieving efficiency in a dynamic adverse selection market for durable goods. The idea is to use the number of times a car has been traded (``vintage'') as a signal of its quality. Higher-valuation consumers experiment with younger vintages. We first exhibit an impossibility result: no choice of (re)sale prices can indu...

We use a universal, extensive form interactive beliefs system to provide an epistemic characterization of a weak and a strong notion of rationalizability with independent beliefs. The weak solution concept is equivalent to backward induction in generic perfect information games where no player moves more than once in any play. The strong solution c...

The epistemic analysis of solution concepts for dynamic games involves statements about the players' beliefs conditional upon different histories of play, their conditional beliefs about each other's conditional beliefs, etc. To represent such statements, we construct a space of infinite (coherent) hierarchies of conditional probability systems, de...

The authors provide an epistemic analysis of forward induction in games with complete and incomplete information. They suggest that forward induction may be usefully interpreted as a set of assumptions governing the players' belief revision processes, and define a notion of strong belief to formalize these assumptions.

We use an extensive form, universal type space to provide the following epistemic characterisation of extensive form rationalisability. Say that player i strongly believes event E if i is certain of E conditional on each of her information sets consistent with E. Our main contribution is to show that a strategy profile s is extensive form rationali...

I consider a class of binary relations on a set of Anscombe-Aumann acts, each admitting a Choquet-expected utility representation, and propose a set of rationality postulates, centered on Myerson’s Subjective Substitution axiom, which characterize the given class as one of dynamically consistent, or coherent, conditional preferences. I show that, u...

Submitted to the Graduate School of Business. Copyright by the author. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 1998.

We introduce adaptive learning behavior into a general-equilibrium life-cycle economy with capital accumulation. Agents form forecasts of the rate of return to capital assets using least-squares autoregressions on past data. We show that, in contrast to the perfect-foresight dynamics, the dynamical system under learning possesses equilibria that ar...

This paper proposes a representation of (possibly) probabilistically unsophisticated preferences whereby (1) beliefs are jointly represented by a finitely additive probability measure and a vector-valued measure; (2) uncertain prospects are ranked according to the difference between a baseline expected utility evaluation and an adjustment term; and...