Abstract

EL ALABI, Emilio  and  MILANESI, Gastón. Evolución de las funciones de utilidad para la toma de decisiones. Escr. Contab. Adm. [online]. 2015, vol.6, n.1, pp. 15-43. ISSN 1853-2055.

Academics have been studying decision making under risk and uncertainty for hundreds of years in order to determine the actual behavior of individuals. Throughout this paper, we present, chronologically, the most relevant state of the art in utility functions developed by the most well-known authors. Even though there are numerous authors who have studied the subject, we begin explaining expected value theory (Huygens, 1657), St. Petersburg Paradox (Bernoulli, 1738), expected utility theory (von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1944), contributions not only from Friedman and Savage (1948) but also from Markowitz (1952), and we end up detailing prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979).

Keywords : Decision Making; Utility Functions; Risk and Uncertainty.