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Indecisiveness, undesirability and overload revealed through rational choice deferral

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DEFERRAL.pdf (356.1Kb)
Date
09/2018
Author
Gerasimou, Georgios
Keywords
Choice deferral
Incomplete preferences
Indecisiveness
Unattractiveness
Choice overload
Revealed preference
Rational choice
HB Economic Theory
T-NDAS
BDC
R2C
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Abstract
Three reasons why decision makers may defer choice are indecisiveness between various feasible options, unattractiveness of these options, and choice overload. This paper provides a choice-theoretic explanation for each of these phenomena by means of three deferral-permitting models of decision making that are driven by preference incompleteness, undesirability and complexity constraints, respectively. These models feature rational choice deferral in the sense that whenever the individual does not defer, he chooses a most preferred feasible option. Active choices are therefore always consistent with the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference. The three models suggest novel ways in which observable data can be used to recover preferences as well as their indecisiveness, desirability and complexity components or thresholds. Several examples illustrate the relevance of these models for empirical and theoretical work.
Citation
Gerasimou , G 2018 , ' Indecisiveness, undesirability and overload revealed through rational choice deferral ' , The Economic Journal , vol. 128 , no. 614 , pp. 2450-2479 . https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12500
Publication
The Economic Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12500
ISSN
0013-0133
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2017, Royal Economic Society, published by Wiley. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12500
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/17356

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