Ellsberg paradox
E564108
The Ellsberg paradox is a famous problem in decision theory and economics that demonstrates how people’s choices often violate expected utility theory due to ambiguity aversion.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Ellsberg paradox canonical | 4 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6033459 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ellsberg paradox Context triple: [Daniel Ellsberg, conceptsNamedAfter, Ellsberg paradox]
-
A.
Allais paradox
The Allais paradox is a famous decision-making puzzle in behavioral economics that shows how people's choices under risk often violate the expected utility theory, revealing systematic inconsistencies in rational choice models.
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B.
Sen’s liberal paradox
Sen’s liberal paradox is a result in social choice theory showing that even minimal individual rights can be incompatible with always achieving Pareto-efficient collective decisions.
-
C.
Arrow paradox
The Arrow paradox is an ancient philosophical argument that challenges the coherence of motion by claiming that a flying arrow must be motionless at every instant of its flight.
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D.
expected utility theory (with John von Neumann)
Expected utility theory (with John von Neumann) is a foundational framework in economics and decision theory that models how rational agents make choices under uncertainty by maximizing the expected value of a utility function.
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E.
Arrow’s impossibility theorem
Arrow’s impossibility theorem is a foundational result in social choice theory showing that no voting system can convert individual preferences into a collective ranking while simultaneously satisfying a set of seemingly reasonable fairness criteria.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ellsberg paradox Target entity description: The Ellsberg paradox is a famous problem in decision theory and economics that demonstrates how people’s choices often violate expected utility theory due to ambiguity aversion.
-
A.
Allais paradox
The Allais paradox is a famous decision-making puzzle in behavioral economics that shows how people's choices under risk often violate the expected utility theory, revealing systematic inconsistencies in rational choice models.
-
B.
Sen’s liberal paradox
Sen’s liberal paradox is a result in social choice theory showing that even minimal individual rights can be incompatible with always achieving Pareto-efficient collective decisions.
-
C.
Arrow paradox
The Arrow paradox is an ancient philosophical argument that challenges the coherence of motion by claiming that a flying arrow must be motionless at every instant of its flight.
-
D.
expected utility theory (with John von Neumann)
Expected utility theory (with John von Neumann) is a foundational framework in economics and decision theory that models how rational agents make choices under uncertainty by maximizing the expected value of a utility function.
-
E.
Arrow’s impossibility theorem
Arrow’s impossibility theorem is a foundational result in social choice theory showing that no voting system can convert individual preferences into a collective ranking while simultaneously satisfying a set of seemingly reasonable fairness criteria.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
decision theory paradox
ⓘ
economic paradox ⓘ thought experiment ⓘ |
| assumes | rational agents under classical theory ⓘ |
| canonicalSetup |
three-color urn problem
ⓘ
two-urn problem ⓘ |
| challenges | Savage axioms ⓘ |
| contradicts | subjective expected utility theory ⓘ |
| demonstrates |
ambiguity aversion
ⓘ
preference for known risks over unknown risks ⓘ violation of expected utility theory ⓘ |
| describedIn |
Risk, Ambiguity, and the Savage Axioms
ⓘ
linked to:
Risk, Ambiguity and the Savage Axioms
|
| empiricalFinding |
choices violate the sure-thing principle
ⓘ
most subjects prefer bets on known probabilities ⓘ |
| field |
behavioral economics
ⓘ
decision theory ⓘ economics ⓘ philosophy of probability ⓘ |
| hasInterpretation |
evidence of non-Bayesian behavior
ⓘ
evidence of preference for robustness ⓘ |
| influenced |
Choquet expected utility
ⓘ
maxmin expected utility theory ⓘ models of ambiguity-sensitive preferences ⓘ multiple priors models ⓘ |
| introducedBy | Daniel Ellsberg ⓘ |
| involves |
ambiguous probabilities
ⓘ
choices under uncertainty ⓘ known probabilities ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
ambiguity
ⓘ
preference reversal ⓘ risk ⓘ subjective probability ⓘ |
| motivated |
alternative utility representations
ⓘ
research on ambiguity aversion ⓘ |
| observes | systematic deviations from classical rationality ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1961 ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Allais paradox
ⓘ
Knightian uncertainty ⓘ ambiguity attitude ⓘ prospect theory ⓘ |
| shows |
inconsistency in revealed preferences
ⓘ
non-additive beliefs ⓘ |
| typicalOutcome | preference patterns incompatible with single subjective prior ⓘ |
| usedIn |
behavioral finance
ⓘ
linked to:
behavioral economics
decision analysis ⓘ experimental economics ⓘ |
| usesExample | urn with balls of different colors ⓘ |
| violates | independence axiom ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ellsberg paradox Description of subject: The Ellsberg paradox is a famous problem in decision theory and economics that demonstrates how people’s choices often violate expected utility theory due to ambiguity aversion.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.