On conditioning and consistency for nonlinear functionals

Abstract

We consider a family of conditional nonlinear expectations defined on the space of bounded random variables and indexed by the class of all the sub-sigma-algebras of a given underlying sigma-algebra. We show that if this family satisfies a natural consistency property, then it collapses to a conditional certainty equivalent defined in terms of a state-dependent utility function. This result is obtained by embedding our problem in a decision theoretical framework and providing a new characterization of the Sure-Thing Principle. In particular we prove that this principle characterizes those preference relations which admit consistent backward conditional projections. We build our analysis on state-dependent preferences for a general state space as in Wakker and Zank (1999) and show that their numerical representation admits a continuous version of the state-dependent utility. In this way, we also answer positively to a conjecture posed in the aforementioned paper.