Harsanyi’s theorem without the sure-thing principle: On the consistent aggregation of Monotonic Bernoullian and Archimedean preferences
Abstract
This paper studies the extension of Harsanyi’s theorem (Harsanyi, 1955) in a framework involving uncertainty. It seeks to extend the aggregation result to a wide class of Monotonic Bernoullian and Archimedean preferences (Cerreia-Vioglio et al., 2011) that subsumes many models of choice under uncertainty proposed in the literature. An impossibility result is obtained, unless we are in the specific framework where all individuals and the social observer are subjective expected utility maximizers sharing the same beliefs. This implies that non-expected utility preferences cannot be aggregated consistently.