Decisions with conflicting and imprecise information

Thibault Gajdos (1, 2, 3) , Jean-Christophe Vergnaud (2, 3)

1 X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique
2 CERSES - UMR 8137 - Centre de recherche sens, ethique, société
3 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne

The most usual procedure when facing decisions in complex settings consists in consulting experts, aggregating the information they provide, and deciding on the basis of this aggregated information. We argue that such a procedure entails a substantial loss, insofar as it precludes the possibility to take into account simultaneously the decision maker's attitude towards conflict among experts and her attitude towards imprecision of information. We propose to consider directly how a decision maker behaves when using information coming from several sources. We give an axiomatic foundation for a decision criterion that allows to distinguish on a behavioral basis the decision maker's attitude towards imprecision and towards conflict.

Mots clés: Decisions with multiple sources of information. Conflict aversion. Imprecision aversion; Decisions with multiple sources of information. Conflict aversion. Imprecision aversion.

Domaines: Economies et finances

Thibault Gajdos, Jean-Christophe Vergnaud. Decisions with conflicting and imprecise information. Social Choice and Welfare, 2013, 41 (2), pp.427-452. ⟨10.1007/s00355-012-0691-1⟩. ⟨hal-00443075⟩