Rationality

This lecture defines rationality in a game theoretical context.

Takeaway Points

  1. Preferences are rational if they are complete and transitive. This makes the game theoretical definition of rational different from colloquial definition; rationality is not the same thing as sensibility.
  2. You can chart rational preferences with an ordering, which is simply a list that has the most preferred outcome on top and progressively less preferred outcomes running down.
  3. Be careful with group preferences: aggregating individuals who each have rational preferences may result in irrational group preferences.

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