Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • Article
  • Quarterly Journal of Economics

'Making Book Against Oneself,' the Independence Axiom, and Non-Linear Utility Theory

By: Jerry R. Green
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

An individual with known preferences over lotteries can be led to accept random wealth distributions different from his initial endowment by a sequential process in which some uncertainty is resolved and he is offered a new lottery in place of the remaining uncertainty. This paper examines the restrictions that can be placed on an individual's preferences by axioms that stipulate that such a process not be able to generate a new wealth distribution that is prima facie inferior to the original. The relationship of these axioms to the independence axiom of von Neumann and Morgenstern and to the quasi convexity of preferences in the wealth distribution are explored.

Citation

Green, Jerry R. "'Making Book Against Oneself,' the Independence Axiom, and Non-Linear Utility Theory." Quarterly Journal of Economics 102, no. 4 (November 1987): 785–796.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Read Now

About The Author

Jerry R. Green

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • Social Choice and Welfare

    Assent-maximizing Social Choice

    By: Katherine A. Baldiga and Jerry R. Green
    • January 2011
    • American Naturalist

    Let the Right One In: A Microeconomic Approach to Partner Choice in Mutualisms

    By: Marco Archetti, Francisco Ubeda, Drew Fudenberg, Jerry R. Green, Naomi E. Pierce and Douglas W. Yu
    • 2009
    • Faculty Research

    Choice-based Measures of Conflict in Preferences

    By: Katherine Baldiga and Jerry R. Green
More from the Author
  • Assent-maximizing Social Choice By: Katherine A. Baldiga and Jerry R. Green
  • Let the Right One In: A Microeconomic Approach to Partner Choice in Mutualisms By: Marco Archetti, Francisco Ubeda, Drew Fudenberg, Jerry R. Green, Naomi E. Pierce and Douglas W. Yu
  • Choice-based Measures of Conflict in Preferences By: Katherine Baldiga and Jerry R. Green
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College