Risk, Ambiguity and Decision

by Daniel Ellsberg

Ellsberg elaborates on "Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms" and mounts a powerful challenge to the dominant theory of rational decision in this book.

Genres: Politics, Economics, Philosophy

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 8, 2001

About the author

Daniel Ellsberg was an American political activist and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.

In January 1973, he was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a maximum sentence of 115 years. Because of governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, and his defense all charges were dismissed against Ellsberg in May 1973.

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic, but difficult work.

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[found in the following list]

Books with the best decision theoretic and philosophical foundation
by Michael Emmett Brady

The following books will provide an optimal understanding of how one should study and organize the data and observations that comprise the social sciences. These books provide a broad foundation in logical, epistemological, and philosophical techniques that are sound and valid. A reader who masters these books will quickly grasp the complex, dynamic, nonlinear aspects of social science systems as they evolve through time.

1. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money - John Maynard Keynes
2. A Treatise on Probability - John Maynard Keynes
3. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit - Frank H. Knight
4. The Theory of Economic Development - Joseph A. Schumpter
5. The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
6. Risk, Ambiguity and Decision - Daniel Ellsberg
7. The (Mis)behavior of Markets - Beniot Mandelbrot and Richard L. Hudson
8. Probability, Econometrics and Truth - Hugo A. Keuzenkamp
9. The Unbround Prometheus: Technological Change and the Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present - Second Edition - David S. Landes
10. The Laws of Thought - George Boole
11. The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
12. Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
13. J.M. Keynes Theory of Decision Making, Induction and Analogy - Michael Emmett Brady

[Jonathon Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with other decision theory books I've read recently, I felt like the question being asked was a lot more interesting than the proposed solution(s). Or rather, the part of the solution that stayed at a somewhat intuitive level (drawing a distinction between risks, which are definite probability distributions, and more ambiguous/vague kinds of gambles, which are more indefinite) seemed reasonable and helpful, but I did not find the more technical analysis to be very compelling.