Risk and Rationality

Risk and Rationality PDF Author: Lara Buchak
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199672164
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view (expected utility theory) is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

Risk and Rationality

Risk and Rationality PDF Author: Lara Buchak
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199672164
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book Here

Book Description
Lara Buchak sets out a new account of rational decision-making in the face of risk. She argues that the orthodox view (expected utility theory) is too narrow, and suggests an alternative, more permissive theory: one that allows individuals to pay attention to the worst-case or best-case scenario, and vindicates the ordinary decision-maker.

Risk, Decision and Rationality

Risk, Decision and Rationality PDF Author: Bertrand Munier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940094019X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 694

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Book Description
Decision Theory has considerably developed in the late 1970's and the 1980's. The evolution has been so fast and far-r2aching that it has become increasingly difficult to keep track of the new state of the art. After a decade of new contributions, there was a need for an overview' of the field. This book is intended to fill the gap. The reader will find here thirty~nine selected papers which were given at FUR-III, the third international confe rence on the Foundations and applications of Utility, Risk and decision theories, held in Aix-en-Provence in June 1986. An introductory chapter will provide an overview of the main questions raised on the subject since the 17th Century and more particularly so in the last thirty years, as well as some elementary information on the experimental and theoretical results obtained. It is thus hoped that any reader with some basic background in either Economics, Hanagement or Operations Research will be able to read profitably the thirty-nine other chapters. Psychologists, Sociologists, Social Philosophers and other specialists of the social sciences will also read this book with interest, as will high-level practitioners of decision~making and advanced students in one of the abovementioned fields. An expository survey of this volume will be found at the end of the introductory chapter, so that any of the seven parts of the book can be put by the reader in due perspective.

Rational Responses to Risks

Rational Responses to Risks PDF Author: Paul Weirich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190089423
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Good decisions account for risks. For example, the risk of an accident while driving in the rain makes a reasonable driver decide to slow down. While risk is a large topic in theoretical disciplines such as economics and psychology, as well as in practical disciplines such as medicine and finance, philosophy has a unique contribution to make in developing a normative theory of risk that states what risk is, and to what extent our responses to it are rational. Weirich here develops a philosophical theory of the rationality of responses to risk. He first distinguishes two types of risk: first, a chance of a bad event, and second, an act's risk in relation to its possible outcomes. He argues that this distinction has normative significance in the sense that one's attitudes towards these types of risks - and how one acts on them - are governed by different general principles of rationality. Consequently, a comprehensive account of risk must not only characterize rational responses to risk but also explain why these responses are rational. Weirich explains how, for a rational ideal agent, the expected utilities of the acts available in a decision problem explain the agent's preferences among the acts. As a result, maximizing expected utility is just following preferences among the acts. His view takes an act's expected utility, not just as a feature of a representation of preferences among acts, but also as a factor in the explanation of preferences among acts. The book's precise formulation of general standards of rationality for attitudes and for acts, and its rigorous argumentation for these standards, make it philosophical; but while mainly of interest to philosophers, its broader arguments will contribute to the conceptual foundations of studies of risk in all disciplines that study it.

Risk Theory

Risk Theory PDF Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783030785017
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
Apart from its foray into technical issues of risk assessment and management, this book has one principal aim. With situations of chancy outcomes certain key factors—including outcome possibilities, overall expectation, threat, and even luck—are measurable parameters. But risk is something different: it is not measurable a single parametric quantity, but a many-sided factor that has several different components, and constitutes a complex phenomenon that must be assessed judgmentally in a highly contextualized way. This book explains and analyzes how this works out in practice. Topics in this work include choice and risk, chance and likelihood, as well as outcome-yield evaluation and risk. It takes into account abnormal situations and eccentric measurements, situational evaluation and expectation and scrutinizes the social aspect of risk. The book is of interest to logicians, philosophers of mathematics, and researchers of risk assessment. The project is a companion piece to the author's LUCK THEORY, also published by Springer.

Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty

Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty PDF Author: George G. Szpiro
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550979
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
At its core, economics is about making decisions. In the history of economic thought, great intellectual prowess has been exerted toward devising exquisite theories of optimal decision making in situations of constraint, risk, and scarcity. Yet not all of our choices are purely logical, and so there is a longstanding tension between those emphasizing the rational and irrational sides of human behavior. One strand develops formal models of rational utility maximizing while the other draws on what behavioral science has shown about our tendency to act irrationally. In Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty, George G. Szpiro offers a new narrative of the three-century history of the study of decision making, tracing how crucial ideas have evolved and telling the stories of the thinkers who shaped the field. Szpiro examines economics from the early days of theories spun from anecdotal evidence to the rise of a discipline built around elegant mathematics through the past half century’s interest in describing how people actually behave. Considering the work of Locke, Bentham, Jevons, Walras, Friedman, Tversky and Kahneman, Thaler, and a range of other thinkers, he sheds light on the vast scope of discovery since Bernoulli first proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox. Presenting fundamental mathematical theories in easy-to-understand language, Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty is a revelatory history for readers seeking to grasp the grand sweep of economic thought.

Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty

Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty PDF Author: Mark Machina
Publisher: Newnes
ISBN: 0444536868
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 897

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Book Description
The need to understand the theories and applications of economic and finance risk has been clear to everyone since the financial crisis, and this collection of original essays proffers broad, high-level explanations of risk and uncertainty. The economics of risk and uncertainty is unlike most branches of economics in spanning from the individual decision-maker to the market (and indeed, social decisions), and ranging from purely theoretical analysis through individual experimentation, empirical analysis, and applied and policy decisions. It also has close and sometimes conflicting relationships with theoretical and applied statistics, and psychology. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of diverse aspects of this field, ranging from classical and foundational work through current developments. - Presents coherent summaries of risk and uncertainty that inform major areas in economics and finance - Divides coverage between theoretical, empirical, and experimental findings - Makes the economics of risk and uncertainty accessible to scholars in fields outside economics

Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management

Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management PDF Author: Jeffrey W. Herrmann
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118919335
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
IIE/Joint Publishers Book of the Year Award 2016! Awarded for ‘an outstanding published book that focuses on a facet of industrial engineering, improves education, or furthers the profession’. Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management emphasizes practical issues and examples of decision making with applications in engineering design and management Featuring a blend of theoretical and analytical aspects, this book presents multiple perspectives on decision making to better understand and improve risk management processes and decision-making systems. Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management uniquely presents and discusses three perspectives on decision making: problem solving, the decision-making process, and decision-making systems. The author highlights formal techniques for group decision making and game theory and includes numerical examples to compare and contrast different quantitative techniques. The importance of initially selecting the most appropriate decision-making process is emphasized through practical examples and applications that illustrate a variety of useful processes. Presenting an approach for modeling and improving decision-making systems, Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management also features: Theoretically sound and practical tools for decision making under uncertainty, multi-criteria decision making, group decision making, the value of information, and risk management Practical examples from both historical and current events that illustrate both good and bad decision making and risk management processes End-of-chapter exercises for readers to apply specific learning objectives and practice relevant skills A supplementary website with instructional support material, including worked solutions to the exercises, lesson plans, in-class activities, slides, and spreadsheets An excellent textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate students, Engineering Decision Making and Risk Management is appropriate for courses on decision analysis, decision making, and risk management within the fields of engineering design, operations research, business and management science, and industrial and systems engineering. The book is also an ideal reference for academics and practitioners in business and management science, operations research, engineering design, systems engineering, applied mathematics, and statistics.

Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action

Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action PDF Author: Carlo C. Jaeger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134203020
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Risk as we now know it is a wholly new phenomenon, the by-product of our ever more complex and powerful technologies. In business, policy making, and in everyday life, it demands a new way of looking at technological and environmental uncertainty. In this definitive volume, four of the world's leading risk researchers present a fundamental critique of the prevailing approaches to understanding and managing risk - the 'rational actor paradigm'. They show how risk studies must incorporate the competing interests, values, and rationalities of those involved and find a balance of trust and acceptable risk. Their work points to a comprehensive and significant new theory of risk and uncertainty and of the decision making process they require. The implications for social, political, and environmental theory and practice are enormous. Winner of the 2000-2002 Outstanding Publication Award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association

Risk Savvy

Risk Savvy PDF Author: Gerd Gigerenzer
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141970111
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
A fascinating, practical guide to making better decisions with our money, health and personal lives from Gerd Gigerenzer, the author of Reckoning with Risk. Risk-taking is essential for innovation, fun, and the courage to face the uncertainties in life. Yet for many important decisions, we're often presented with statistics and probabilities that we don't really understand and we inevitably rely on experts in the relevant fields - policy makers, financial advisors, doctors - to analyse and choose for us. But what if they don't quite understand the way the information is presented either? How do we make sure we're asking doctors the right questions about proposed treatment? Is there a rule of thumb that could help choose the right partner? This entertaining book shows us how to recognize when we don't have all the information and know what to do about it. Gerd Gigerenzer looks at examples from every aspect of life to identify the reasons for our collective misunderstanding of the risks we face. He shows how we can all use simple rules to avoid being manipulated into unrealistic fears or hopes, to make better-informed decisions, and to learn to understand risk and uncertainty in our own lives. 'Gigerenzer is brilliant and his topic is fabulous' Steven Pinker 'Catchily optimistic and slyly funny' Guardian Gerd Gigerenzer is Director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and former Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books on heuristics and decision making, including Reckoning with Risk.

Risk-Taking in International Politics

Risk-Taking in International Politics PDF Author: Rose McDermott
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472087877
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Discusses the way leaders deal with risk in making foreign policy decisions