DSc 8350, Risk Benefit Analysis
Fall 2003, 331 General Classroom Bldg, W4:30-7:00
Dr. Whalen                                  Office hours in cyberspace; Send Me Email
Click here for Syllabus

1  Aug  27	Introduction: Prospering in an "information economy"  Decisions Under Ignorance: Churchill & Whalen p1-6 Sample Problems	Slides Roger Pinky
2  Sept. 3	Introduction to Decisions Under Risk: Churchill & Whalen p7-11 Maximizing Expected Value  Minimizing Expected Regret  Expected Value of Perfect Information: a Regret Perspective	Hot Dog Pushcarts Risk Slides Decision Trees
3  Sept 10	Soft Decision Analysis p1-4 --- Bayes' Theorem  *** P(A|B) does NOT equal P(B|A) * **	Drug Testing Bags and Chips  Slides
4  Sept 17	Living in an information economy:  EVUSI & EVSI  Soft Decision Analysis p1-4 Information Value: in Use & In Exchange Measuring the Information in an observation          Quantity of Information	Chip Audio Daltex Shares Lala Lovely Karpetstan Practice Exercises
5  Sept 24	Interpretations of Probability            Notes on odds and "Dutch Books"	Dutch Book spreadsheets
6  Oct 1	Decisions Without Prior Probabilities            Critical Odds method for 2 actions, 2 states           Bayes Theorem in Odds Form           Sensitivity Analysis
7  Oct 8	Soft Decision Analysis p7-11 Whalen & Bronn: Decision Making Under Generalized Uncert. Whalen: Interval Probabilities Induced by Decision Problems	Slides
8  Oct 15	Henkind & Harrison: "An Analysis of 4 Uncertainty Calculi"      Excel spreadsheet of the three-suspects example Take-Home Midterm Distributed Preview of Midterm

9  Oct 22	Class Exercise on Risk Attitude Click here for spreadsheet Introduction to Utility Theory Interval Utility Scales  Von Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Theory Soft Decision Analysis p5-6	Guido's EZ Loan
10  Oct 29	Estimating Utility Curves for Money Buying  and Selling Price & the Wealth Effect Utility for Nonmonetary Outcomes	Lala Lovely's utility  Tenfour Goodbuddy
11  Nov 5	Big insurance, mutual insurance, and cartels  Prospect TheoryComments  More on Prospect Theory	Roger Bucks

 
 

12  Nov 12	The Basic Concepts of Game Theory  Two-Person Strictly Competitive Games Mixed Strategies
13  Nov 19	Two-Person Nonzero Sum Games:  Lose-Lose Games The Clash of Wills             Price War              Coalition Games
Nov 26
14  Dec 3	The Problem of Social Choice  Ordinal SWFs and Arrow's Theorem Majority Rule   Non-Ordinal SWFs and Utilitarianism   Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility
15  Dec 10	Chen et al: "Value Oriented Social Decision Analysis"             Public Participation in Hazard Management      Summary            Swiss landfill siting Aristotle: "Nichomachean Ethics (Book 1):"Summary Text  (optional) Summary of the course
Dec 17	Final Exam Due  Projects Due