Real representations of preferences and applications.

In this thesis we first review some results concerning the real representation of preferences. Different kind of preferences are considered and a particular attention is devoted to the case of intransitivity of the associated indifference relation. Therefore, interval orders and semiorders appear as relevant types of binary relations for which indifference is not transitive. It is particulary interesting to guarantee the existence of continuous or at least upper semicontinuous representations. Homogeneity of the representations is studied in connection with the aforementioned continuity when the space of preferences is endowed with an algebraic structure

On the choice of most-preferred alternatives

Maximal elements of a binary relation on compact subsets of a metric space define a choice function. Necessary and sufficient conditions are found for: (1) the choice function to have nonempty values and be path independent; (2) the choice function to have nonempty values provided the underlying relation is an interval order. For interval orders and semiorders, the same properties are characterized in terms of representations in a chain.Maximal element; Path independence; Interval order; Semiorder

A selection of maximal elements under non-transitive indifferences

In this work we are concerned with maximality issues under intransitivity of the indifference. Our approach relies on the analysis of "undominated maximals" (cf., Peris and Subiza, J Math Psychology 2002). Provided that an agent's binary relation is acyclic, this is a selection of its maximal elements that can always be done when the set of alternatives is finite. In the case of semiorders, proceeding in this way is the same as using Luce's selected maximals. We put forward a sufficient condition for the existence of undominated maximals for interval orders without any cardinality restriction. Its application to certain type of continuous semiorders is very intuitive and accommodates the well-known "sugar example" by Luce.Maximal element; Selection of maximals; Acyclicity; Interval order; Semiorder

Conditions for the Upper Semicontinuous Representability of Preferences with Nontransitive Indifference

We present different conditions for the existence of a pair of upper semicontinuous functions representing an interval order on a topological space without imposing any restrictive assumptions neither on the topological space nor on the representing functions. The particular case of second countable topological spaces, which is particularly interesting and frequent in economics, is carefully considered. Some final considerations concerning semiorders finish the paper

Ordinal Games

We study strategic games where players' preferences are weak orders which need not admit utility representations. First of all, we ex- tend Voorneveld's concept of best-response potential from cardinal to ordi- nal games and derive the analogue of his characterization result: An ordi- nal game is a best-response potential game if and only if it does not have a best-response cycle. Further, Milgrom and Shannon's concept of quasi- supermodularity is extended from cardinal games to ordinal games. We ¯nd that under certain compactness and semicontinuity assumptions, the ordinal Nash equilibria of a quasi-supermodular game form a nonempty complete lattice. Finally, we extend several set-valued solution concepts from cardinal to ordinal games in our sense.Ordinal Games, Potential Games, Quasi-Supermodularity, Rationalizable Sets, Sets Closed under Behavior Correspondences

Open questions in utility theory

Throughout this paper, our main idea is to explore different classical questions arising in Utility Theory, with a particular attention to those that lean on numerical representations of preference orderings. We intend to present a survey of open questions in that discipline, also showing the state-of-art of the corresponding literature.This work is partially supported by the research projects ECO2015-65031-R, MTM2015-63608-P (MINECO/ AEI-FEDER, UE), and TIN2016-77356-P (MINECO/ AEI-FEDER, UE)

Noncommutative Choquet theory

We introduce a new and extensive theory of noncommutative convexity along with a corresponding theory of noncommutative functions. We establish noncommutative analogues of the fundamental results from classical convexity theory, and apply these ideas to develop a noncommutative Choquet theory that generalizes much of classical Choquet theory. The central objects of interest in noncommutative convexity are noncommutative convex sets. The category of compact noncommutative sets is dual to the category of operator systems, and there is a robust notion of extreme point for a noncommutative convex set that is dual to Arveson's notion of boundary representation for an operator system. We identify the C*-algebra of continuous noncommutative functions on a compact noncommutative convex set as the maximal C*-algebra of the operator system of continuous noncommutative affine functions on the set. In the noncommutative setting, unital completely positive maps on this C*-algebra play the role of representing measures in the classical setting. The continuous convex noncommutative functions determine an order on the set of unital completely positive maps that is analogous to the classical Choquet order on probability measures. We characterize this order in terms of the extensions and dilations of the maps, providing a powerful new perspective on the structure of completely positive maps on operator systems. Finally, we establish a noncommutative generalization of the Choquet-Bishop-de Leeuw theorem asserting that every point in a compact noncommutative convex set has a representing map that is supported on the extreme boundary. In the separable case, we obtain a corresponding integral representation theorem.Comment: 81 pages; minor change

Existence of Order-Preserving Functions for Nontotal Fuzzy Preference Relations under Decisiveness

Looking at decisiveness as crucial, we discuss the existence of an order-preserving function for the nontotal crisp preference relation naturally associated to a nontotal fuzzy preference relation. We further present conditions for the existence of an upper semicontinuous order-preserving function for a fuzzy binary relation on a crisp topological space

On the existence of most-preferred alternatives in complete lattices

If a preference ordering on a complete lattice is quasisupermodular, or just satisfies a rather weak analog of the condition, then it admits a maximizer on every subcomplete sublattice if and only if it admits a maximizer on every subcomplete subchainlattice optimization; quasisupermodularity