Aggregate then evaluate

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Hauptverfasser: Van Oosten, Zachary, Wang, Ruodu
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Van Oosten, Zachary
Wang, Ruodu
author_facet Van Oosten, Zachary
Wang, Ruodu
contents We distinguish two frameworks for decisions under ambiguity: evaluate-then-aggregate (ETA) and aggregate-then-evaluate (ATE). Given a statistic that represents the decision maker's pure-risk preferences (such as expected utility) and an ambiguous act, an ETA model first evaluates the act under each plausible probabilistic model using this statistic and then aggregates the resulting evaluations according to ambiguity attitudes. In contrast, an ATE model first aggregates ambiguity by assigning the act a single representative distribution and then evaluates that distribution using the statistic. These frameworks differ in the order in which risk and ambiguity are processed, and they coincide when there is no ambiguity. While most existing ambiguity models fall within the ETA framework, our study focuses on the ATE framework, which is conceptually just as compelling and has been relatively neglected in the literature. We develop a Choquet ATE model, which generalizes the Choquet expected utility model by allowing arbitrary pure-risk preferences. We provide an axiomatization of this model in a Savage setting with an exogenous source of unambiguous events. The Choquet ATE framework allows us to analyze a wide range of ambiguity attitudes and their interplay with risk attitudes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_03396
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Aggregate then evaluate
Van Oosten, Zachary
Wang, Ruodu
Theoretical Economics
We distinguish two frameworks for decisions under ambiguity: evaluate-then-aggregate (ETA) and aggregate-then-evaluate (ATE). Given a statistic that represents the decision maker's pure-risk preferences (such as expected utility) and an ambiguous act, an ETA model first evaluates the act under each plausible probabilistic model using this statistic and then aggregates the resulting evaluations according to ambiguity attitudes. In contrast, an ATE model first aggregates ambiguity by assigning the act a single representative distribution and then evaluates that distribution using the statistic. These frameworks differ in the order in which risk and ambiguity are processed, and they coincide when there is no ambiguity. While most existing ambiguity models fall within the ETA framework, our study focuses on the ATE framework, which is conceptually just as compelling and has been relatively neglected in the literature. We develop a Choquet ATE model, which generalizes the Choquet expected utility model by allowing arbitrary pure-risk preferences. We provide an axiomatization of this model in a Savage setting with an exogenous source of unambiguous events. The Choquet ATE framework allows us to analyze a wide range of ambiguity attitudes and their interplay with risk attitudes.
title Aggregate then evaluate
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.03396