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Thus, : is a "rescaled" utility function which has a minimum value of 0 and a maximum value of 1. The Relative Utilitarian social choice rule selects the element in X {\displaystyle X} which maximizes the utilitarian sum
An additive agent has a utility function that is an additive set function: for every additive agent i and item j, there is a value ,, such that () =, for every set Z of items. When all agents are additive, welfare maximization can be done by a simple polynomial-time algorithm: give each item j to an agent for whom v i , j {\displaystyle v_{i,j ...
The value of A and C together is the less than the sum of their values. For instance two versions of the same CD may not be as valuable to a person as the sum of the values of the individual CDs on their own. I.e, A and C are substitute goods. The values of B and D together may be more than their individual values added.
A single-attribute utility function maps the amount of money a person has (or gains), to a number representing the subjective satisfaction he derives from it. The motivation to define a utility function comes from the St. Petersburg paradox: the observation that people are not willing to pay much for a lottery, even if its expected monetary gain is infinite.
Figure 3: This shows the utility maximisation problem with a minimum utility function. For a minimum function with goods that are perfect complements, the same steps cannot be taken to find the utility maximising bundle as it is a non differentiable function. Therefore, intuition must be used.
Although there are at least four sources of uncertainty - the attribute outcomes, and a decisionmaker's fuzziness about: a) the specific shapes of the individual attribute utility functions, b) the aggregating constants' values, and c) whether the attribute utility functions are additive, these terms being addressed presently - uncertainty ...
Note that, as per the affine transformation property alluded to above, the utility function gives the same preferences orderings as does ; thus it is irrelevant that the values of and its expected value are always negative: what matters for preference ordering is which of two gambles gives the higher expected utility, not the numerical values ...
An additive utility function is characteristic of independent goods. For example, an apple and a hat are considered independent: the utility a person receives from having an apple is the same whether or not he has a hat, and vice versa. A typical utility function for this case is given at the right.