Essays on decision theory and bargaining theory

Abstract

This thesis is composed by three chapters that correspond to three articles. The first two chapters deal with the theory of inter-temporal choices. A new concept, called delay aversion, is introduced and is analysed in two contexts. In the first one, I study the case of a delay averse decision maker who has preferences represented by a functional over the set of bounded, infinite streams of income. This functional may be either the Choquet integral or the MaxMin operator. Sever mathematical characterization are given. In the second framework I introduce a new topology over the set of bounded, real-valued sequences. This topology is shown to "discount" the future in a way consistent with delay aversion. Again, several mathematical properties are studied. The third chapter focuses on the theory of bargaining. The cooperative model of bargaining proposed by Nash is studied by introducing a mediator who should make two bargainers strike an agreement. By imposing several axioms on the preferences of the mediator, I prove that she should make an offer that maximises the probability of joint acceptance. More technically, I find that she should maximise a copula. This approach allows to recover several bargaining solutions existing in the literature as specific cases.