Working Papers by Christopher P. Chambers
# | Title | Authors | Date | Length | Paper | Abstract | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1440 | A Characterization of "Phelpsian" Statistical Discrimination | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 06/13/2018 | 14 | sswp1440.pdf | We establish that statistical discrimination is possible if and only if it is impossible to uniquely identify the signal structure observed by an employer from a realized empirical distribution of skills. The impossibility of statistical discrimination is shown to be equivalent to the existence of a fair, skill-dependent remuneration for every set of tasks every signal-dependent optimal assignment of workers to tasks. Finally, we connect this literature to Bayesian persuasion, establishing that if the possibility of discrimination is absent, then the optimal signalling problem results in a linear payoff function (as well as a kind of converse). | |
1428 | Preference Identification | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Lambert, Nicolas S | 04/11/2017 | 37 | sswp1428.pdf | An experimenter seeks to learn a subject's preference relation. The experimenter produces pairs of alternatives. For each pair, the subject is asked to choose. We argue that, in general, large but finite data do not give close approximations of the subject's preference, even when countably infinite many data points are enough to infer the preference perfectly. We then provide sufficient conditions on the set of alternatives, perferences, and sequences of pairs so that the observation of finitely many choices allows the experimentor to learn the subject's preference with arbitrary precision. The sufficient conditions are strong, but encompass many situations of interest. And while preferneces are approximated, we show that it is harder to identify utility functions. We illustrate our results with several examples, including expected utility, and preferences in the Anscombe-Aumann model. | |
1420 | A Characterization of Combinatorial Demand | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 05/31/2016 | 9 | sswp1420.pdf | We prove that combinatorial demand functions are characterized by two properties: continuity and the law of demand. | |
1418 | On Multiple Discount Rates | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 05/09/2016 | 33 | sswp1418.pdf | We propose a theory of intertemporal choice that is robust to specic assumptions on the discount rate. One class of models requires that one utility stream be chosen over another if and only if its discounted value is higher for all discount factors in a set. Another model focuses on an average discount factor. Yet another model is pessimistic, and evaluates a flow by the lowest available discounted value. | |
1401 | Testable Implications of Translation Invariance and Homotheticity: Variational, Maxmin, Cara and CRRA Preferences | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Saito, Kota | 01/22/2015 | 21 | sswp1401-3.pdf | We provide revealed preference axioms that characterize models of translation invariant preferences. In particular, we characterize the models of variational, maxmin, CARA and CRRA utilities. In each case, we present a revealed preference axiom that is satisfied by a dataset if and only if the data set is consistent from the corresponding utility representation. Our results complement traditional exercies in decision theory that take preferences as primitive. | |
1348 | Testable Implications of Bargaining Theories | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 06/07/2011 | sswp1348.pdf | |||
1332 | General revealed preference theory | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Shmaya, Eran | 09/22/2010 | sswp1332.pdf | |||
1317 | The axiomatic structure of empirical content | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Shmaya, Eran | 01/28/2010 | sswp1317.pdf | |||
1310 | Testable implications of gross substitutes in demand | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Shmaya, Eran | 09/01/2009 | 11 pages | sswp1310.pdf | ||
1300 | Inequality aversion and risk aversion | Chambers, Christopher P. | 03/01/2009 | 9 pages | sswp1300.pdf | ||
1299 | When does aggregation reduce uncertainty aversion? | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 02/01/2009 | 24 pages | sswp1299.pdf | ||
1298 | The core matchings of markets with transfers | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 10/01/2008 | 32 pages | sswp1298.pdf | ||
1295 | Money metric utilitarianism | Chambers, Christopher P. Hayashi, Takashi | 07/01/2008 | 25 pages | sswp1295.pdf | ||
1286 | Choice and individual welfare | Chambers, Christopher P. Hayashi, Takashi | 03/01/2008 | 29 pages | sswp1286.pdf | ||
1272 | A measure of bizarreness | Chambers, Christopher P. Miller, Alan D. | 07/01/2007 | 11 pages | sswp1272.pdf | ||
1270 | On behavioral complementarity and its implications | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico Shmaya, Eran | 07/01/2007 | 35 pages | sswp1270.pdf | ||
1248 | Supermodularizability | Chambers, Christopher P. Echenique, Federico | 02/01/2006 | 15 pages | wp1248.pdf | ||
1246 | A simple axiomatization of quantiles on the domain of distribution functions | Chambers, Christopher P. | 01/01/2006 | 8 pages | wp1246.pdf | ||
1238 | Bayesian consistent prior selection | Chambers, Christopher P. Hayashi, Takashi | 09/01/2005 | 12 pages | wp1238.pdf | ||
1231 | Proper scoring rules for general decision models | Chambers, Christopher P. | 08/01/2005 | 11 pages | wp1231.pdf | ||
1222 | Quantiles and medians | Chambers, Christopher P. | 04/01/2005 | 23 pages | wp1222.pdf | ||
1218 | An axiomatic theory of political representation | Chambers, Christopher P. | 03/01/2005 | 30 pages | wp1218.pdf | We discuss the theory of voting rules which are immune to gerrymandering. Our approach is axiomatic. We show that any rule that is unanimous, anonymous, and representative consistent must decide a social alternative as a function of the proportions of agents voting for each alternative, and must either be independent of this proportion, or be in one-to-one correspondence with the proportions. In an extended model in which voters can vote over elements of the unit interval, we introduce and characterize the quasi-proportional rules based on unanimity, anonymity, representative consistency, strict monotonicity, and continuity. We show that we can always (pointwise) approximate a single-member district quota rule with a quasi-proportional rule. We also establish that upon weakening strict monotonicity, the generalized target rules emerge. | |
1217 | Consistent Representative Democracy | Chambers, Christopher P. | 03/01/2005 | 28 pages | wp1217.pdf | We study axioms which define "representative democracy" in an environment in which agents vote over a finite set of alternatives. We focus on a property that states that whether votes are aggregated directly or indirectly make no difference. We call this property 'representative consistency'. 'Representative consistency' formalizes the idea that a voting rule should be immune to gerrymandering. We characterize the class of rules satisfying 'unanimity, anonymity,' and 'representative consistency'. We call these rules "partial priority rules." A partial priority rule can be interpreted as a rule in which each agent can "veto" certain alternatives. We investigate the implications of imposing other axioms to the list specified above. We also study the partial priority rules in the context of specific economic models. | |
1184 | Preference Aggregation under Uncertainty: Savage vs. Pareto | Chambers, Christopher P. Hayashi, Takashi | 11/01/2003 | 11 pages | wp1184.pdf | Following Mongin [12, 13], we study social aggregation of subjective expected utility preferences in a Savage framework. We argue that each of Savage's P3 and P4 and incompatible with the Strong Pareto property. A representation theorem for social preferences satisfying Pareto indifference and conforming to the state-dependent expected utility model is provided.Keywords: Harsanyi's Theorem, preference aggregation, subjective expected utility, Savage's axioms. | |
1179 | Virtual Repeated Implementation | Chambers, Christopher P. | 09/01/2003 | 7 pages | wp1179.pdf | We show that in the context of repeated implementation, any social choice rule which realizes all alternatives for a positive (yet arbitrarily small) amount of time is Nash implementable. The results complement those of the virtual implementation literature. | |
1177 | Multi-Utilitarianism in Two-Agent Quasilinear Social Choice | Chambers, Christopher P. | 09/01/2003 | 19 pages | wp1177.pdf | We introduce a new class of rules for resolving quasilinear social choice problems. These rules extend those of Green [7]. We call such rules multi-utilitarian rules. Each multi-utilitarian rule is associated with a probability measure over the set of weighted utilitarian rules, and is derived as the expectation of this probability. These rules are characterized by the axioms efficiency, translation invariance, monotonicity, continuity, and additivity. By adding recursive invariance, we obtain a class of asymmetric rules generalizing those Green characterizes. A multi-utilitarian rule satisfying strong monotonicity has an associated probability measure with full support. |