Choice models
Contrary to common sentiments of `social science', I primarily value social theory for its rhetoric, and the potential for profundity to arise from abstraction. This admiration for social theory developed while studying mainstream economic models of mathematical decision-making (rationality, sophisticated probabilistic beliefs, equilibrium, etc.), but over time I gravitated toward boundedly rational models, as can be seen in the papers found below. Despite these days finding myself far more focused on pedagogy and interdisciplinary studies, these technical chapters of my dissertation still bring me some pride and joy.
Seemingly Rational Choice
In revealed preference exercises, observed choices can only be assumed to reveal experience within the total set of observed chosen alternatives, but likewise cannot reveal anything about the decision-makers' experiences with unchosen ones. This is a predicament even for well-behaved choice data which is rationalizable: if we consider the possibility that the decision-maker themselves disregards alternatives that are potentially welfare-optimal, then we must accept the possibility that many unchosen alternatives may in fact outrank the chosen ones. This paper contains a model of seemingly rational (SR) choice in which chosen alternatives are not restricted to outrank any alternatives that have never been sampled by the decision-maker within the choice framework, and can thus be considered unknown to both the decision-maker and the observer. Choices thus provide a dual role of maintaining partially-informed optimality while also potentially limiting the knowledge available to the decision-maker about their preferences for unsampled alternatives. This model is observationally equivalent (falsifiable under the same conditions) to rational choice, but may differ significantly from welfare-optimal choices depending on the sparsity of the collection of observed menus. Various properties are discussed regarding the potential multiplicity and sub-optimality of seemingly rational choices in finite choice spaces. I then move on to consider some competitive models of sampling in which two senders reveal alternatives to a receiver who finds seemingly rational choices particularly convincing. I conclude with some applications to standard Economics by characterizing potential forms of seemingly rational consumer choices.
Misleading Facts
A sender is not allowed to lie, but may be strategically selective in their choice of facts to be misleading: to reveal facts knowing that they imply something false. A receiver falls victim to their own extremely narrow-minded implications by holding point-prediction beliefs. The sender reveals a sequence of hard evidence that evokes a belief about the true state of the world that is consistent with the evidence presented, but this belief contains more specificity than the evidence itself. The evocability of beliefs are characterized under particular functional forms of belief-formation inspired by the heuristics literature. When the sender is uncertain of the true state, speeches that maximize the probability of implementing their preferred state are characterized by a maximally-agreeable revelation of evidence that solve a class of set-cover problems. A dynamic version of the model with feedback to the sender is included to capture the phenomenon of dynamic ``phishing''.
Works in Progress
Sequential Choice Functions with Mauricio Ribeiro