How much ambiguity aversion?: Finding indifferences between Ellsberg's risky and ambiguous bets

Date

2012

Authors

Binmore, Ken
Stewart, Lisa
Voorhoeve, Alex

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

Abstract

Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our expectations, the principle of insufficient reason performed substantially better than rival theories in our experiment, with ambiguity aversion appearing only as a secondary phenomenon.

Description

Keywords

Keywords: Ambiguity aversion; Ellsberg paradox; Hurwicz criterion; Maximin criterion; Principle of insufficient reason

Citation

Source

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

Type

Journal article

Book Title

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Restricted until

2037-12-31