Existence of Richter-Peleg Representation for General Preferences

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Gorno, Leandro, Monteiro, Paulo Klinger
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Gorno, Leandro
Monteiro, Paulo Klinger
author_facet Gorno, Leandro
Monteiro, Paulo Klinger
contents This paper provides a general characterization of preferences that admit a Richter-Peleg representation without imposing completeness or transitivity. We establish that a binary relation on a nonempty set admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is "strongly acyclic" and its transitive closure is "separable". Strong acyclicity rules out problematic cycles among indifference classes, while separability limits the structural complexity of the relation. Our main result has two significant corollaries. First, when the set of alternatives is countable, a binary relation admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is strongly acyclic. Second, a preorder admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is separable. These findings have important implications for decision theory, particularly for obtaining maximal elements through scalar maximization in the presence of indecisiveness.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_08980
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Existence of Richter-Peleg Representation for General Preferences
Gorno, Leandro
Monteiro, Paulo Klinger
Theoretical Economics
This paper provides a general characterization of preferences that admit a Richter-Peleg representation without imposing completeness or transitivity. We establish that a binary relation on a nonempty set admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is "strongly acyclic" and its transitive closure is "separable". Strong acyclicity rules out problematic cycles among indifference classes, while separability limits the structural complexity of the relation. Our main result has two significant corollaries. First, when the set of alternatives is countable, a binary relation admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is strongly acyclic. Second, a preorder admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is separable. These findings have important implications for decision theory, particularly for obtaining maximal elements through scalar maximization in the presence of indecisiveness.
title Existence of Richter-Peleg Representation for General Preferences
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.08980