In this volume we present some of the papers delivered at FUR-IV - the
Fourth International Conference on Founda- tions and Applications of
Utility, Risk and Decision Theory in Budapest, June 1988. The FUR
Conferences have provided an appreciated forum every two years since
1982 within which scientists can report recent issues and prospective
applications of decision theory, and exchange ideas about controversial
questions of this field. Focal points of the presented papers are:
expected utility versus alterna- tive utility models, concepts of risk
and uncertainty, developments of game theory, and investigations of real
decision making behaviour under uncertainty and/or in risky situations.
We hope that this sample of papers will appeal to a wide spectrum of
readers who are interested in and fami- liar with this interesting and
exciting issues of decision theory. A wide range of theoretical and
practical questions is considered in papers included in this volume, and
many of them closely related to economics. In fact, there were two
Nobel-Laureates in economics among the participants: I. Herbert A. Simon
(1978) and Maurice Allais (1988), who won the prize just after the
conference. His paper deals with problems of cardinal utility. After a
concise overview of the history and theory of cardinal utility he gives
an estimate of the invariant cardinal utility function for its whole
domain of variation (i. e.