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The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Stephen Morris
Stephen Morris
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Abstract

Why is (it that) common priors are implicit or explicit in the vast majority of the differential information literature in economics and game theory? Why has the economic community been unwilling, in practice, to accept and actually use the idea of truly personal probabilities in much the same way that it did accept the idea of personal utility functions? After all, in (Savage's expected utility theory), both the utilities and probabilities are derived separately for each decision maker. Why were the utilities accepted as personal, and the probabilities not?

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1995 , pp. 227 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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