Talk:Utility/Archive 1

I agree. The Utility in Game Theory section is ambiguous and non-standard.

I wrote a section on "Utility functions", which is a first attempt at replacing the material. However, I still need to write about Bernoulli utility function and the Expected Utility theorem, before we can "obselete" the existing section. When I get some time...

I like the approach/notation in Mas-Colell et al much better than Fudenberg/Tirole and Myerson. I haven't looked at Osbourne/Rubinstein.

I agree -- the entire Utility in Game Theory section should be scrapped. I'll take a stab sketching the expected utility theorem. Amcfreely 23:45, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

--Clausen 07:18, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ahh, I'm bit confused here. One can observe someone's act or activities (buying, walking, sleeping, whatever). But what purpose does it serve to define such activities in context of choise? If someone paid $1 for a Coke, isn't that the only observable fact? Why bring Pepsi, Milk or Ice Cream? Can anyone expand on this? <FWBOarticle>

Also, that whole paragraph is full of spelling and grammatical errors, and is rather badly written as well.

Take a look at my rewrite. Amcfreely 04:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Most modern economists are just applied mathematicians, and as such need to express everything in those terms, even if it doesn't apply. 12.47.123.121 13:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Should the the unreferenced page Util be merged here and redirected? The page Util is unreferenced and the topic appears better covered here, but the term is not identified in the article Utility. Jeepday 14:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Not only is the util article unreferenced, it discusses utility theory rather than the util itself (and does a poor job of it). There's certainly potential for an article about the unit, but turning that page into a redirect would be an improvement to it. -- Jonel | Speak 16:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)]

Thanks for being BOLD Jonel. Signed Jeepday 13:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

vNM payoff is a major part of utility payoff, it should deserve to be a main article by its own right. It has much to do with game theory, rather than calculations. Moreover, it involves in people's choices and how they react, kind of like social science.

we need different pages about disutility & inutility, or we should explain them in this article. Jackzhp (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

is the utility of money being called Bernoulli utility? Jackzhp (talk) 19:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Why has utility (in the moral sense) been made into an article about economics? I don't get it. Moral utility is clearly the most common use of the word (in the context of the philosophy of utilitarianism). WTF happened? 24.174.82.195 (talk) 04:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Because in economics, Utility is all over the place. Philosophy of utilitarianism is less known, IMO. --Forich (talk) 23:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Because economics is essentially politics (decision-making) without morals. Morality has no place in the so-called "objective science" of economics. As a result, the primacy of politics in decision-making has mostly been replaced by economics. As a result, few resources remain available for the non-human world, not to mention the poorest people in the world, who - lacking money - are considered to have no demand (for resources) by this field. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.150.179.59 (talk) 15:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Mathematics has this very nice subject called binary relation. I suggest some editor (I may attempt to do it) rewrites the section on rationality, and adapt it in those terms. For example, Fishburn (1994, p. 1401) says: "The formal development of utility (...) is based on the notion of a binary relation. A binary relation is (...) . Special types of binary relations are identified by conjunctions of properties as follows: (...) weak order: assymetric and negatively transitive (...) an ordered binary relation is isomorphically embeddable in the ordered real numbers (...). Weakly ordered preferences have been widely assumed in economic theory, where one presumes that X is the nonnegative orthant R+n of a finite-dimensional Euclidean space, preference increases along rays out from the origin, and the indifference classes or isoutility contours are smooth hypercurves concave." This is a very nice synthesis by Fishburn, and it avoids the ugly term that neoclassical economics has coined: "rational".--Forich (talk) 00:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the history of "Utility" should be worked out: in particular, I know that David Hume used "Utility" in the modern sense prior to 1776 (and hence prior to Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and JS Mill.) But who was the first? Also, who was the first to formulate it as a function? Bentham? Pareto? Marshall? Samuelson? Rick lightburn (talk) 15:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a well known article by Stigler on the history of utility.--Forich (talk) 21:11, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why one cannot conclude that the cup of orange juice is 2/3 as good as the cup of juice... it seems to me that it must be exactly 2/3, given that we are talking about CARDINAL utility here. Can somebody explain it to me?--Forich (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Different authors draw different distinctions when they use the terms “cardinal” and “ordinal”, and seem oblivious to the fact that they're not really speaking of quite the same things.

• Utility could be demonstrably ordinal, when no quantification could be fit to a rational preference system. (See Mc Culloch, James Huston; “The Austrian Theory of the Marginal Use and of Ordinal Marginal Utility”, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie 37 (1973).) Most economists are sadly oblivious to this possibility.
• Utility could be very weakly quantified such that a quantification could be fit, but any monotonic transformation would fit just as well. This is what most authors mean by “ordinal”, though some call it “cardinal”.
• Utility could be weakly quantified such that a quantification could be fit, but any affine transformation would fit just as well. Many authors still call this “ordinal”; many others call it “cardinal”.
• Utility could be more strongly quantified such that we can start to compare the utility of one person to that of another, much as we could compare the temperature of two physical bodies. Most authors who call that weakly quantified notion “ordinal” would call this notion “cardinal”.

Really, the article ought to distinguish these four notions (and perhaps others), explain the different uses of “cardinal” and “ordinal”, and then itself avoid using those ambiguous terms further. —SlamDiego_←T 09:34, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you nailed it, SlamDiego. I've seen exactly those last three examples of utilities, for example "a quantification could be fit but any monotonic transformation would fit just as well": this is labeled as Ordinal in most textbooks. However, is an ambiguous definition, because the so called weakly-quantified-type-of-utilities share the same property, but somehow they are now Cardinal. I've never understood the explanation found in textbooks.

Now, onto the subject at hand: before attempting to use your proposal of taxonomy (it feels too much like original research, this is not the place to do that), I suggest we look for the actual mathematical definition of cardinality and ordinality. Only then can we pinpoint exactly where it is that the ambiguity arises. Your source (McCulloch 1977, p. 274) says somehing about mathematicians stating a precise definition of cardinality in 1949, it would be useful to start digging there. --Forich (talk) 23:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

What perhaps needs to be explicitly stated here is that, however any economist may define “cardinal” and “ordinal”, the cardinal is distinguished from the ordinal by a strengthening of assumptions; the cardinal has all of the positive properties of the ordinal.

I do fear that the issue of “original research” may bite hard here. The confusion that prevails amongst so many economists suggests that it would be difficult to find a clarifying exposition in the literature.

I don't propose that we use the terminology that I used above, which is both original and ad hoc. (Nor would I propose that we here use the terminology that I have actually used in presenting papers.) I simply propose that we use the categories above, after showing that they correspond to important treatments of the subject. I certainly don't think that we would overstep the bounds set by WP:OR if we cited and quoted different economists to make it made plain that they weren't defining these words in the same way as each other, and to show how they differed.

Meanwhile, though I am quite sure that mathematicians' notions should be included in the article (in part at least for the sake of those who come to this article with such notions), if using “cardinal” and “ordinal” only in ways that are familiar to mathematicians and these ways are unfamiliar to economists, then that itself would probably violate WP:OR. And I'm not sure that finding the mathematicians' definitions of these terms will actually pinpoint most of the ambiguity. McCulloch ends-up calling “essentially cardinal” everything that isn't what I've called “demonstrably ordinal” (which he calls simply “ordinal”). But it wouldn't be helpful to refuse to recognize the distinctions amongst these “essentially cardinal” concepts, even if every one of them fits a mathematicians' notion of “cardinality”. This article plainly needs to talk about the distinction between the concept where any monotonic transformation is allowed and that where only affine transformations are permitted; and it plainly needs to talk about the further requirements to justify interpersonal comparisons of utility.

If it cannot do these things withoug violating WP:OR, then we face the grotesque case that the article is intrinsically broken.—SlamDiego_←T 18:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I have done major changes to the entry of cardinal utility. Take a look over there and discuss if necessary. --Forich (talk) 21:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

This article is too much focused on 20th century concepts of utility in economics. Utility in philosophy before and during that time perio* Risk - some investments may have an alluring average/classical utility, yet are too risky for some investors to realistically enter. For example, a given business venture has a 1 in 10 chance of multiplying the principle investment by 20, and a 9 in 10 chance of a zero return. The average/classical utility of this investment is a 2-fold return on investment. This sort of investment is prudent only if there are enough such opportunities for the statistical average to be attained with reasonable certainty. And the investor must have deep enough pockets to finance such an extensive venture. An investment company may have the resources to do so, but individual investors may not.

• Classical Utility - for example an investment has a 50% chance of doubling the principle and a 50% chance of halving the principle. The classical utility of this investment is the average of 2 and 1/2; that is 1.25. A buyer may purchase a more expensive good because it will need replacement at a later date. Classical utility isn't inherently statistical; a given tool may have a add 50% to the value of a raw material and its classical utility is a measure of such.
• preference - a buyer may choose to purchase the item with the lower classical utility, simply because the buyer prefers that item. Marketing is heavily focused on this aspect of commerce. A buyer may purchase goods from the outlet with a freindly staff and higher priced, lower quality inventory.
• indifference - the classical utilities of two items are very similar, there is no significant preference for either item, the buyer is indifferent. Yet, one item is purchased the other is not. This may seem banal, but utility is very mathematical in its very nature, and such a function is necesary to create realistic models of economic activity.

To illistrate these four concepts/functions in an economic model:

• goods are purchased based on risk: if there is too high a probability of an unfavorable return, the purchase will not be made by 'reasonable' buyers. Regardless of the statistical, classical utility of the commodity.
• Assuming risk is not a deciding factor in choosing between two items, the choice will often be made by 'reasonable' buyers based on the higher average return on investment.
• Buyers do not always choose based on reason. Preference may outweigh risk and classical utility. For example, gamboling.
• In the event that no significant bias for either item, the choice will be made at random.

Who wrote the comment above? It makes little sense; in case we do a file archiving I suggest we eliminate it. --Forich (talk) 16:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I searched in the history, and it seems like user: Dhh28, made a comment that somehow got messed up with another comment. --Forich (talk) 16:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

2nd derivative vs. 3rd derivative of the utility function. Jackzhp (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

See Prudence#Prudence in economics and finance. Rinconsoleao (talk) 08:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

This edit introduced the idea that Barzilai has criticized utility theory (and other stuff), in an article which can be read here. I'm very uncomfortable with this. It is (or soon will be?) published--I don't know if the material for the book is peer-reviewed or not. I find myself scratching my head in looking over the article, probably partially because it's one of those things that will take deep thought to understand, but I fear also because it's obscure. Mostly, I think this falls into "strong claims require strong evidence". There are plenty of criticisms of utility theory and expected utility theory. If Barzilai's are new and unique then they should be given time to garner response before being included here. To include them now is, I think, giving them undue weight. CRETOG8(t/c) 07:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Barzilai's criticisms have been met with little response from peers, other than disregard: see http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/Krantzlabweb/Papers/measurement_comments.pdf and http://www.creativedecisions.net/~rozann/Barzilai%20Rebuttal%20Whistler.pdf for instance. I haven't found any economists commenting on his work and, on Google Scholar, pretty much the only citations of his papers on the errors of utility theory are made by his own (newer) papers on the same topic. There are thousands upon thousands of papers written on utility theory more relevant than Barzilai's, so it makes little sense to include him in the article. I have removed the paragraph about Barzilai's work. 201.252.127.228 (talk) 21:21, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

It reads fairly poorly; the first paragraph lacks citations and seems kind of weasely to me; the second is mostly incomprehensible and certainly non-grammatical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.101 (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Some of the criticism to cardinal utilty in this entry is not accurate. It says: "it is impossible to measure the level of satisfaction "quantitatively" when someone consumes or purchases an apple". This is NOT a property of a cardinal utility function, only a property of "measurable utilities". Economists do not take measurable utility seriously nowadays, but cardinal utility remains valid, as in expected utility theory. Please read about this distinction of measurability and cardinal utility here. We need to fix this erroneus critique--Forich (talk) 18:23, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

"Repeating in category language:" ... really? Does express it in terms of category theory have positive utility to anyone other than to the author? Angry bee (talk) 02:45, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

From the perspective of mathematics, it is really nonsense (compared to abstract nonsense). There is no morphism between categories. There are only morphisms between objects within a category and functors between category. I'll flag it with cn. 18.51.3.218 (talk) 03:08, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

The first sentence is a definition. It was inconsistent: it cannot be both relative and total customer satisfaction. I changed it according to investopedia.com, and also included a reference to this definition. Avi Harel (talk) 16:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Why is the word 'customer' used at all? (Is that to suggest utility is non-applicable concept in an endowment economy?) I have removed it. Furthermost (talk) 04:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"utility is a representation of preferences over some set of goods and services." Say what? "a representation of preferences over <something>"? Wuzzat? --Jerome Potts (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

How about creating a section on the substitution postulate: the trade-off between baskets of goods, giving up a commodity for some other one, the relation between substitubility and the slope of indifference curves, the implicit denial of the "priority of needs fallacy", and the relation between slope of indifference curves and "value"?--Forich (talk) 00:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's add a 3d graph of a utility function!--Forich (talk) 05:17, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Bertoletti has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

1) "Gorman polar form" is not a utility function 2) the "continuity/archimedean" property of preferences should not be labelled "convexity"

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Bertoletti has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

• Reference : Paolo Bertoletti & Federico Etro, 2013. "Monopolistic Competition when Income Matters," DEM Working Papers Series 055, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:55, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

The last sentence in the first paragraph reads: "It is devoid of its original interpretation as a measurement of the pleasure or satisfaction obtained by the consumer from that choice." This is not true, whilst utility has become a more abstract concept within economics, it is still clear that the function originally derives from pleasure/satisfaction of the consumer. I will replace this for now. Andre908436 (talk) 14:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

RESEARCH SUGGESTION ; ( & page-disambiguation suggestion, near the end )

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Sorry? to have to try be the one to drag 'the'(singular) argument back to some un-imaginable, and probably forgotten time, but to-many, the term Utility, does NOT; refer-to primarily this (relatively)recent definition made up within quite soft/idealistic preferences/claims of ethical legitimacy based on pleasure/happiness of the 18th-19th C.s,

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but instead, refers to a much broader term encompassing capacities (capacity-TO-use) of the people, of-a-nation / of-a-state,

ex.s ; the people's utility-WITH irrigation, the people's utility-WITH internal-security,

or ; the people's utility-WITH aqua-engineering technology and design, the people's utility-WITH information collection, interrogation, and enforcement of laws,

(both verb-noun, and collective-verb, as well as other points-in-time conjugations)

to-save time, the suffix -WITH, is shortened.

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Although singular terms for 'the people' of a nation, which themselves are usually dynamically-changing and rarely stagnant/static, and-so the idea of encompassing all-people within any is itself 'folly',

the POINT of the term, and trying to then propose systems of government that-USE-ALL-that a nation contains or has the capacity FOR (that utilizes (verb) all that we have), is to as i remember it ; 1 Highlight and better separate for-comprehensive-clarity/planning both who-does-what and which utilities(verb-noun capacity sense) are connected with other utilities(-of-the-people), 2 Measure capacities of a people of a nation, and 3 To be able to DELEGATE, especially, so that you do not end up with sub-sections of government sometimes working against each other

i.e. a step back for-an-overview, in terms of monitoring, purpose (of existing-utilizations within the people),.. can be done more-easily,.. if ongoing demarcations of the people's utilities(capacity-verb present/future tense) are maintained,

and then also, being able to more easily notice WHEN assessed/planned-for utilities-of(capacity sense) the people, will need support, assistance, funding, whatever, to work in-concordance with other people's-utility or outside-assistance, trade, etc,.. can also be ... over-viewed, with a clearer idea of what is available TO a state, compared to private interest's unreliability/delays/betrayals, etc (within a nation).

So in an overall sense, utilizING, the people's utility(s),

requires both defining them, but also then USING them (using what the people already-utilize), or could be, with assistance, from then, a UtilitarIAN, policy, or fundamentalist government, that does not UN-ethically, let capacity be-wasted constantly, by waiting for things like offers-TO government - instead, government going-OUTward, to research/monitor, what COULD be possible, then allows a government that is ALSO utilitarian,

extra-chances, to be MAKING offers, to private, as-opposed to only opportunistic deals amongst the power-brokers, and often already co-self-interested.

It also had/has implications in terms of RISK, that non-utilitarian, are more likely to fall victim to cronyism / insuarism, as-opposed to being more-aware of opportunity, & positioning of one's country, in the immediate future, via the monitoring.

Contrasted-with soft-border liberalism, where looser private relationships, indirectly create more opportunity, but it falls victim to politics and current affairs, dynastic feuds, etc

To some extent similar to mobilization. An original Utilitarian (supporter of the spending/effort to maintain the bureaucracy/agency needed for it, is a supporter of the ongoing cost/sacrifice, that does not always yield anything EACH time, but maintains a presence, and also-usually makes some things more efficient / more consistently macro-managed, over-time)

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Prrrrety sure that was actually what was MEANT, in older definitions, in terms of then BROADER SCOPE of the aims of utilisING, what can be potentially ustilisED.

i.e. the happiness / pleasure hijackings, in the more recent books, concepts, are only-that, a attempted hijacking of-a-term, of-an-identity (a supporter-of), in-amongst presumably embitterness(es)/political upheaval. Considering whatshisname and whatshisname, are 17th/18th century, my money'd be on IMPERIAL embitternesses.

These hijackings have been added on-the-end more recently, and only-APPEAR TO REFER to a past similar term, as-though continuing-on, the intent of past-concepts, but actually inserting the difference somewhere along in their own arguments/publications, for WHY it should(prioritize happiness/pleasure when PREVIOUSLY, did-not, and so the OLDER definition has primacy/originality ),

but then what... we've only ended up remembering / been-distracted-by, attracted-to-the-hate, of behind-safe-Imperial-walls toffs & fops, of the most-recent? (i'm only 40-ish, and i can remember it - that's NOT OLD, in terms of one's reading)

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The one i'm referring to, could well be Greek or something, & deserve a separate wiki all on it's own!  :)

So for the page/wiki, perhaps a better separation of TERMS? , or a differentiation at the top of the page, would re-direct people (myself included) to whatever original term.

(if it's in greek, in-greek, if it's Egyptian-hieroglyphs, in-Egyptian-hieroglyphs, if it's in ancient Chinese, ancient-Chinese! whichever! - the point is, the multiple terms / different definitions, would be clear, and we'd end up at the right page - many might COME to this page, but not find the other definition, a mistaken-assumption-definition of one writer from the past or otherwise - if someone's defunct term, HAS-A-HISTORY, i'm saying that could get a mention near the top, so we don't waste our time - a disambiguation page)

I can't help refer to exactly where, sorry. Get the feeling by-memory, that it was a greek realization about organization and awareness-limitations-of-any-ruler no matter how in-touch, or popular they might be ;

That-there's a solid argument for specifically observing/monitoring what the people realistically, will actually be able to achieve/be able to RELIED upon,.. -for, WHEN THEY use, when-they, utilize _________, whatever-in-question.

( possibly a counter-argument for too much power/rule centralization? ) 120.21.151.36 (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

This is very hard to read , you need to follow proper formatting guidelines (Help:Talk pages) and be concise on your point.

Actually, this goes a little bit beyond wikipedia guidelines , you shouldn't be using this much hyphenation anywhere when writing in English. Are you auto-translating from another language? That would explain it a little.

But more importantly, be concise. This reads like a rant written in stream-of-consciousness format, not something you would find at Wikipedia.

Ignoring most of the tangents, i guess your main complain is that the article fails to describe the real meaning of Utility. I do think the article jumps between the philosophical and economical meanings of utility with little-to-no warning , and separation in 2 articles might be needed. But i remain unconvinced by your argument to make the article about a - according to you - ancient and absolute meaning of the word . First of all, how do you know what words meant in ancient times? You didn't provide any source for it beyond "i think i heard of it and i think its greek", and independently of all this you should really work a bit more if you want to change something here, at least research the topic and provide sources, dont expect people to expend their time going after sources just to validate your "i think i saw it somewhere" claim.

At the end of the day, it really feels like you are arguing from common-sense, and expected to find the semantic meaning of the word utility here, as seen in day-to-day use. Your talk about semantics, etymology, maybe greek origins of the word, are more aligned with what you would find on a dictionary than wikipedia(or encyclopedias in general).

Luckily we have wikitionary : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/utility Nilanz (talk) 02:41, 15 September 2023 (UTC)