Abstract
During the past generation, expected utility theory has been widely accepted as the normative standard for decision making under risk and under uncertainty. However, it is now known that reasonable people often violate its assumptions, and a number of generalizations of the theory have been developed to accommodate some of the more common violations. This essay recalls the origins of expected utility in the early 1700s, notes its axiomatizations on the basis of preference comparisons in the mid-1900s, describes violations of those axioms uncovered since then, outlines new theories stimulated by the violations, and suggests where the field might be headed in the next few decades.
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Fishburn, P.C. Expected utility: An anniversary and a new era. J Risk Uncertainty 1, 267–283 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00056138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00056138