摘要
We study the demand for flexibility and what it reveals about subjective uncertainty. As in Kreps [D. Kreps, 1979. A representation theorem for x2018;preference for flexibilityx2019;. Econometrica 47, 565x2013;577], Nehring [K. Nehring, 1996. Preference for flexibility and freedom of choice in a Savage framework. UC Davis Working Paper; K. Nehring, 1999. Preference for flexibility in a Savage framework. Econometrica 67, 101x2013;119] and Dekel et al. [E. Dekel, B. Lipman, A. Rustichini, 2001. Representing preferences with a unique subjective state space. Econometrica 69, 891x2013;934], the latter is represented by a subjective state space consisting of possible future preferences over actions to be chosen ex post. One contribution is to provide axiomatic foundations for a range of alternative hypotheses about the nature of these ex post preferences. Secondly, we establish a sense in which the subjective state space is uniquely pinned down by the ex ante ranking of (random) menus. Finally, we demonstrate the tractability of our representation by showing that it can model the two comparative notions x201c;2 desires more flexibility than 1x201d; and x201c;2 is more averse to flexibility-risk than is 1.x201d;