Representations of Preferences Orderings: 422 (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, 422) - Tapa blanda

Bridges, Douglas S.

 
9783540588399: Representations of Preferences Orderings: 422 (Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, 422)

Sinopsis

A basic assumption made by pioneers of classical microeconomics such as Edgeworth and Pareto was that the ranking of a consumer’s preferences could always be measured numerically, by associating to each possible con­ sumption bundle a real number that measured its utility: the greater the utility, the more preferred was the bundle, and conversely. It took several decades before the naivety of this assumption was seriously challenged by economists, such as Wold, attempting to find conditions under which it could be justified mathematically. Wold’s work was the first in a long chain of results of that type, leading to the definitive theorems of Debreu and oth­ ers in the 1960s, and subsequently to the refinements and generalisations that have appeared in the last twenty-five years. Out of this historical background there has appeared a general mathe­ matical problem which, as well as having applications in economics, psy­ chology, and measurement theory, arises naturally in the study of sets bear­ ing order relations: Given some kind of ordenng t on a set 5, fina a real-valued mapping u on 5 such that for any elements x, y of 5, x t yif and only if u(x) 2: u(y). If also 5 has a topology (respective/y, differential structure), find conditions that ensure the continuity (respectively, differentiability) of the mapping u. A mapping ·u of this kind is called a representation of the ordering C:::.

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Reseña del editor

A basic assumption made by pioneers of classical microeconomics such as Edgeworth and Pareto was that the ranking of a consumer's preferences could always be measured numerically, by associating to each possible con­ sumption bundle a real number that measured its utility: the greater the utility, the more preferred was the bundle, and conversely. It took several decades before the naivety of this assumption was seriously challenged by economists, such as Wold, attempting to find conditions under which it could be justified mathematically. Wold's work was the first in a long chain of results of that type, leading to the definitive theorems of Debreu and oth­ ers in the 1960s, and subsequently to the refinements and generalisations that have appeared in the last twenty-five years. Out of this historical background there has appeared a general mathe­ matical problem which, as well as having applications in economics, psy­ chology, and measurement theory, arises naturally in the study of sets bear­ ing order relations: Given some kind of ordenng t on a set 5, fina a real-valued mapping u on 5 such that for any elements x, y of 5, x t yif and only if u(x) 2: u(y). If also 5 has a topology (respective/y, differential structure), find conditions that ensure the continuity (respectively, differentiability) of the mapping u. A mapping ·u of this kind is called a representation of the ordering C:::.

Reseña del editor

This monograph is devoted to a rigorous presentation of results about the representation of preference orderings by real-valued order isomorphisms ("utility functions"). The authors have gathered together, from sources scattered throughout a wide range of the literature of mathematics and economics, the most significant theorems and methods in their field. The book will be a valuable resource for theoretical economists, mathematicians, and all interested in partial orders and their representation. It could also be used as the text for an advanced graduate course in mathematical economics.

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9783642514968: Representations of Preferences Orderings

Edición Destacada

ISBN 10:  3642514960 ISBN 13:  9783642514968
Editorial: Springer, 2014
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