Papers by Ariel Rubinstein
Economic Fables, 2012
It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the boo... more It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the book. young man, shy, yet proud. The left half of the diploma is in Polish, the right half in Hebrew: My father had a strong, confident voice, masculine, but soothing. When, rarely, he would raise his voice, it would frighten those around him. At home, everything was conducted according to his wishes. At one time he must have been a real ladies' man. One of my aunts was secretly in love with him and, while I was growing up, sealed brown envelopes would still arrive at our house from a female admirer, a Dr. H. D., who apparently felt lost without him. During elections, he was the chairman of a polling station committee as the representative of the Mapai (the ruling party in Israel until 1977). On Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, for a few minutes he was part of the guard of honor made up of veterans of the Haganah (the pre-State paramilitary defense organization), which President Ben Zvi reviewed before
Open Book Publishers, Jun 26, 2023
to return to the definition; if your viewer does not have such a button, the key combination alt+... more to return to the definition; if your viewer does not have such a button, the key combination alt+left arrow may have the same effect. During our thirty years of collaboration we have often debated the use of gendered pronouns in academic material. In our book A course in game theory (1994) we expressed our opinions, which remain unchanged. Martin prefers to use feminine pronouns and Ariel insists on using masculine pronouns. We do not repeat our positions in detail here. In one sentence, Ariel argues: "I am a strong believer in the need to repair gender injustice but the cure is in other frontiers, which require much more than language gestures". Martin's position is elaborated in his book An introduction to game theory (2004, xv-xvi), where he cites evidence that the use of male-focussed language reinforces sexist stereotypes and ways of thought, and argues that while the use of feminine pronouns is obviously not sex-neutral, it can only help to address the existing bias. In our 1994 book we adopted a compromise that neither of us liked. Here we adopt a different solution: this book has two editions, one that uses feminine pronouns and one that uses masculine pronouns. We leave it to you to make your choice. We can think of an individual's preferences over a set of alternatives as encoding the answers to a questionnaire. For every pair (x , y ) of alternatives in the set,
It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the boo... more It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the book. young man, shy, yet proud. The left half of the diploma is in Polish, the right half in Hebrew: My father had a strong, confident voice, masculine, but soothing. When, rarely, he would raise his voice, it would frighten those around him. At home, everything was conducted according to his wishes. At one time he must have been a real ladies' man. One of my aunts was secretly in love with him and, while I was growing up, sealed brown envelopes would still arrive at our house from a female admirer, a Dr. H. D., who apparently felt lost without him. During elections, he was the chairman of a polling station committee as the representative of the Mapai (the ruling party in Israel until 1977). On Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, for a few minutes he was part of the guard of honor made up of veterans of the Haganah (the pre-State paramilitary defense organization), which President Ben Zvi reviewed before
Open Book Publishers, Jun 26, 2023
to return to the definition; if your viewer does not have such a button, the key combination alt+... more to return to the definition; if your viewer does not have such a button, the key combination alt+left arrow may have the same effect. During our thirty years of collaboration we have often debated the use of gendered pronouns in academic material. In our book A course in game theory (1994) we expressed our opinions, which remain unchanged. Martin prefers to use feminine pronouns and Ariel insists on using masculine pronouns. We do not repeat our positions in detail here. In one sentence, Ariel argues: "I am a strong believer in the need to repair gender injustice but the cure is in other frontiers, which require much more than language gestures". Martin's position is elaborated in his book An introduction to game theory (2004, xv-xvi), where he cites evidence that the use of male-focussed language reinforces sexist stereotypes and ways of thought, and argues that while the use of feminine pronouns is obviously not sex-neutral, it can only help to address the existing bias. In our 1994 book we adopted a compromise that neither of us liked. Here we adopt a different solution: this book has two editions, one that uses feminine pronouns and one that uses masculine pronouns. We leave it to you to make your choice. We can think of an individual's preferences over a set of alternatives as encoding the answers to a questionnaire. For every pair (x , y ) of alternatives in the set,
We introduce a new type of agent whom we refer to as a "problem solver" (PS). The PS interacts wi... more We introduce a new type of agent whom we refer to as a "problem solver" (PS). The PS interacts with conventional players and wishes to respond optimally to their moves. The PS has only partial information about the moves of the other players. Unlike a regular player, the PS does not "put himself in the shoes" of other players and does not form beliefs about their moves. Rather, he treats the data as a logic puzzle: he calculates the set of possible configurations of moves that are consistent with the data he observes and responds to it. We insert such a problem solver into a simple model of competition for attention and analyze its equilibria. We demonstrate a novel feature of equilibrium in the model, whereby even though the PS always succeeds in his task, he may be uncertain that he will do so. The second author acknowledges financial support from ERC grant 269143. Our thanks to Noga Alon, Ayala Arad, Kfir Eliaz, Gil Kalai and Rani Spiegler for helpful conversations.
/ We are grateful to Noga Alon of Tel Aviv University for numerous discussions and assistance reg... more / We are grateful to Noga Alon of Tel Aviv University for numerous discussions and assistance regarding Proposition 2. We also thank the co-editor of this journal, two anonymous referees, Andrew Caplean and Bart Lipman for valuable comments.
American Economic Review, 2015
We propose a new abstract definition of equilibrium in the spirit of competitive equilibrium: a p... more We propose a new abstract definition of equilibrium in the spirit of competitive equilibrium: a profile of alternatives and a public ordering (expressing prestige, price, or a social norm) such that each agent prefers his assigned alternative to all lower-ranked ones. The equilibrium operates in an abstract setting built upon a concept of convexity borrowed from convex geometry. We apply the concept to a variety of convex economies and relate it to Pareto optimality. The “magic” of linear equilibrium prices is put into perspective by establishing an analogy between linear functions in the standard convexity and “primitive orderings” in the abstract convexity. (JEL I11, I18, J44, K13)
The Economic Journal, Sep 21, 2007
Lecture audiences and students were asked to respond to virtual decision and game situations at g... more Lecture audiences and students were asked to respond to virtual decision and game situations at gametheory.tau.ac.il. Several thousand observations were collected and the response time for each answer was recorded. There were significant differences in response time across responses. It is suggested that choices made instinctively, that is, on the basis of an emotional response, require less response time than choices that require the use of cognitive reasoning.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 1987
A,A,A,A,A or A,A,B,C,D? Over-Diversification in Repeated Decision Problems
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Mar 1, 2000
Journal of Economic Education, Jul 1, 2013
Oftentimes economic theorists have insightful things to say about methodology and policy as they ... more Oftentimes economic theorists have insightful things to say about methodology and policy as they relate to teaching, but those insights are often lost to more pedagogically-focused professors who do not follow theoretical developments. This section is the first in a series of occasional pieces by economic theorists and researchers that the editors believe may be of general interest. These informal comments are those of Ariel Rubinstein delivered at a Wine and Cheese party at NYU, October 28, 2011, and were expanded on by the author at the invitation of the editors (revised January 2013). Readers who find Rubinstein's comments interesting are encouraged to go to his Web site, http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il, and to look at his new book, Economic Fables, which raises a number of issues directly related to teaching.
Modeling Bounded Rationality in Economic Theory
Models in Microeconomic Theory, 2020
Management Science, 2019
A “problem solver” (PS) is an agent who when interacting with other agents does not “put himself ... more A “problem solver” (PS) is an agent who when interacting with other agents does not “put himself in their shoes” but rather chooses a best response to a uniform distribution over all possible configurations consistent with the information he receives about the other agents’ moves. We demonstrate the special features of a PS by analyzing a modified coordination game. In the first stage, each of the other participants—who are treated as conventional players—chooses a location. The PS then receives some partial information about their moves and chooses his location. The PS wishes to coordinate with any one of the conventional players and they wish to coordinate with him but not with each other. Equilibria are characterized and shown to have different properties than those of Nash equilibria when the PS is treated as a conventional player. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.
Naive strategies in zero-sum games
Open Book Publishers, May 1, 2012
It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the boo... more It is recommended (though definitely not required) that you visit the site before reading the book. Economic Fables young man, shy, yet proud. The left half of the diploma is in Polish, the right half in Hebrew: My father had a strong, confident voice, masculine, but soothing. When, rarely, he would raise his voice, it would frighten those around him. At home, everything was conducted according to his wishes. At one time he must have been a real ladies' man. One of my aunts was secretly in love with him and, while I was growing up, sealed brown envelopes would still arrive at our house from a female admirer, a Dr. H. D., who apparently felt lost without him. During elections, he was the chairman of a polling station committee as the representative of the Mapai (the ruling party in Israel until 1977). On Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers, for a few minutes he was part of the guard of honor made up of veterans of the Haganah (the pre-State paramilitary defense organization), which President Ben Zvi reviewed before 1. Rational, Irrational My father 's rationality
The Jungle Tale and the Market Tale
Economic Fables, May 1, 2012
Eye tracking is used to investigate decision makers' motivations and procedures in choice pro... more Eye tracking is used to investigate decision makers' motivations and procedures in choice problems. Patterns of eye movements in problems where the deliberation process is easily discernable are used to understand the deliberation in other problems. We find that in problems which involve the distribution of income between the participant and another individual, participants who behave selfishly nevertheless take into consideration the size of the payment to the other person. In problems that involve choice between two simple lotteries, eye movements indicate that many participants based their decision on a comparison of prizes and probabilities rather than making an expected utility calculation.
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Papers by Ariel Rubinstein