Article ID: | iaor201111726 |
Volume: | 72 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 113 |
End Page Number: | 130 |
Publication Date: | Jan 2012 |
Journal: | Theory and Decision |
Authors: | Baharad Eyal, Goldberger Jacob, Koppel Moshe, Nitzan Shmuel |
Keywords: | optimization |
In certain judgmental situations where a ‘correct’ decision is presumed to exist, optimal decision making requires evaluation of the decision‐makers’ capabilities and the selection of the appropriate aggregation rule. The major and so far unresolved difficulty is the former necessity. This article presents the optimal aggregation rule that simultaneously satisfies these two interdependent necessary requirements. In our setting, some record of the voters’ past decisions is available, but the correct decisions are not known. We observe that any arbitrary evaluation of the decision‐makers’ capabilities as probabilities yields some optimal aggregation rule that, in turn, yields a maximum‐likelihood estimation of decisional skills. Thus, a