Belief revision generalized: a joint characterization of Bayes's and Jeffrey's rules

Dietrich, Franz, List, Christian and Bradley, Richard (2015) Belief revision generalized: a joint characterization of Bayes's and Jeffrey's rules. Journal of Economic Theory, 162 . pp. 352-371. ISSN 0022-0531

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Abstract

We present a general framework for representing belief-revision rules and use it to characterize Bayes's rule as a classical example and Jeffrey's rule as a non-classical one. In Jeffrey's rule, the input to a belief revision is not simply the information that some event has occurred, as in Bayes's rule, but a new assignment of probabilities to some events. Despite their differences, Bayes's and Jeffrey's rules can be characterized in terms of the same axioms: responsiveness, which requires that revised beliefs incorporate what has been learnt, and conservativeness, which requires that beliefs on which the learnt input is ‘silent’ do not change. To illustrate the use of non-Bayesian belief revision in economic theory, we sketch a simple decision-theoretic application.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00220...
Additional Information:	© 2015 Elsevier Inc.
Library of Congress subject classification:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Journal of Economic Literature Classification System:	C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C73 - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games; Repeated Games D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D80 - General D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief D - Microeconomics > D9 - Intertemporal Choice and Growth > D90 - General
Sets:	Departments > Government Departments > Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Collections > Economists Online Research centres and groups > Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS)
Date Deposited:	06 Jan 2016 11:08
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/64836/

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