Functional characterizations of basic properties of utility representations (Q1606062)

In this interesting paper, the authors give functional characterizations of some basic properties of utility representations. They consider several widely invoked properties of binary gambles such as event commutativity, separability, segregation, and homogeneity. Various combinations of these properties are characterized by functional equations. They show that event commutativity follows from the homogeneity and segregation. Among other the following mathematical result is established: Suppose \(M \in IIIC\). Then \(M\) satisfies the functional equation \[ M_w [M_{w^\prime}(p, q),q]= M_{w'} [ M_w(p,q),q], \qquad w,w'\in[0,1],\;0 \leq q \leq p<k \] if and only if it has the representation \[ \theta_q [ M_w(p,q)]= \psi_q(w)\theta_q(p), \qquad w \in [0,1], \;q \in [0, k), \;p \in [q, k). \] Here \(M_w\) denotes the function \(M\) with \(w\) held fixed, \(\theta_q : [q,k)\to [0, \infty)\) is a strictly increasing and continuous function with \(\theta_q (q) = 0\), and \(\psi_q : [0,1] \to [0,1]\) is an increasing bijection.