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Almost any decision is taken in the face of
uncertainty. Uncertainty takes various forms. We got a number
of theories of decision making in the face of known
unknowns: All outcomes are known but we lack information
about which outcome occurs. However, we miss a tractable but
general theory of decision making in the face of unknown
unknowns, when we lack comprehension or even lack
conception of the situation. We take our biggest
decisions in the face of unknown unknowns. It applies to
personal decision like what to study, whom to marry, or which
profession to enter. It holds for corporate decisions like
which business project to pursue or markets to enter, as well
as for political decision on institutions and laws. Obviously,
it also holds for decisions of mankind on how to deal with
existential risks and opportunities.
The Unawareness Project is devoted to research on theories of unknown unknowns and its applications. We develop and study
Recent Research
Raising
Bidders' Awareness in Second-Price Auctions (Ying Xue Li
and Burkhard C. Schipper)
Tacit Knowledge (Gaia Belardinelli and
Burkhard C. Schipper)
Efficient
Mechanisms under Unawareness (Kym Pram and Burkhard C.
Schipper)
Predicting the Unpredictable under
Subjective Expected Utility (Burkhard C. Schipper)
Interactive Awareness of Unawareness (Burkhard C. Schipper), Video of plenary talk at TARK 2021
Rationalizable Screening and Disclosure under Unawareness (Alejandro Francetich and Burkhard C. Schipper), Slides
Implicit Knowledge in Unawareness Structures (Gaia Belardinelli and Burkhard C. Schipper), Synthese 204 (2024), 141.Value-Capture in the Face of Known and Unknown Unknowns (Kevin Bryan, Michael Ryall, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Strategy Science 7 (2022), 157-189. Slides, Preprint
The Unawareness Project
brings together researchers on unawareness through mini
workshops. Get
in touch if you want to join future mini workshops.
Mini-Workshops
Zoom Mini-Workshop on New Developments in Epistemic Logic with Unawareness, December 2, 2022
Zoom Mini-Workshop on Decision
Theory with Unawareness, June 3, 2022
Zoom Mini-Workshop on Financial Markets with Unawareness, May 21, 2021
Zoom Mini-Workshop on Contract Theory with Unawareness, April 23, 2021
The
Unawareness Project promotes a new generation
of social scientists who are formally trained in theories of
unawareness through mini graduate courses on unawareness
(e.g. Epicenter Summer School, Maastricht, 2015, Lake Como
Summer School on Logic, Uncertainty, and Games, 2018). Get in touch if you
want me to teach in your program.
I am always looking for bright PhD students and
collaborators to get involved. Potential PhD students need to
apply to our economics
PhD program at UC Davis, survive a competitive selection
process as well as our demanding graduate course work. I am
also affiliated with the Graduate Group in
Applied Mathematics at UC Davis.
Recent visitors:
Ki Vin
Foo, National University of Singapore, Spring 2024
Gaia
Belardinelli, University of Copenhagen, March - June,
2022, December 2023 - July 2024
The
Unawareness Project encourages people to get
involved. You can get involved by familiarizing yourself
with research on unawareness, participating in our
mini-workshops, collaborate on research, or donate to The Unawareness Project.
A Reader on
Unawareness
Belief, Awareness, and Limited Reasoning (Ron Fagin and Joe Halpern), Artificial Intelligence 34 (1988), 39-76.
Interactive Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Journal of Economic Theory 130 (2006), 78-94. Preprint
Awareness (Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Handbook of Epistemic Logic, Chapter 3, H. van Ditmarsch, J.Y. Halpern, W. van der Hoek and B. Kooi (Eds.), College Publications, London, 2015, 77–146.
Dynamic Unawareness and Rationalizable Behavior (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Games and Economic Behavior 81 (2013), 50-68. Preprint
Further Reading: The Unawareness Bibliography
The
Unawareness Project is an initiative by Burkhard C. Schipper, professor of
economics and an affiliated faculty member at the Graduate
Group in Applied Mathematics at the University of California,
Davis. He studied economics at the University of Bonn and Tel
Aviv University, receiving a PhD from the University of Bonn
in 2003. His research focuses on inventing mathematical tools
for modeling of unawareness in game theory and decision theory
and its application to economics, finance and politics. He
also studies human behavior through experiments.
We are grateful for support from the Army Research Office through Contract W911NF2210282 for part of the research of The Unawareness Project.
All Research and Writings of the The Unawareness Project
Raising
Bidders' Awareness in Second-Price Auctions (Ying
Xue Li and Burkhard C. Schipper)
Efficient
Mechanism under Unawareness (Kym Pram and Burkhard C.
Schipper)
Predicting the Unpredictable under
Subjective Expected Utility (Burkhard C. Schipper)
Interactive Awareness of Unawareness
(Burkhard C. Schipper), Video of
plenary talk at TARK 2021
Rationalizable Screening and
Disclosure under Unawareness (Alejandro Francetich and
Burkhard C. Schipper), Slides
Insiders Trading on Unknown Unknowns (Burkhard C. Schipper and Hang Zhou), Slides
Network Formation in a Society with Fragmented Knowledge and Awareness (Burkhard C. Schipper)
Disclosure under Unawareness: An Experiment (Yingxue Li and Burkhard C. Schipper)
Kuhn's Theorem for Extensive Games with Unawareness (Burkhard C. Schipper)
Conditional
Dominance in Dynamic Games with Unawareness (Martin
Meier and Burkhard C. Schipper)
Implicit
Knowledge in Unawareness Structures - Extended
Abstract (Gaia Belardinelli and Burkhard C. Schipper),
in: Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge,
Proceedings of the Nineteens Conference (TARK 2023), Rineke
Verbrugge (Ed.), Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical
Computer Science, 379, 93-112.
Discovery and Equilibrium in Games with Unawareness (Burkhard C. Schipper), Journal of Economic Theory 198 (2021), 105365.
Value-Capture in the Face of Known and Unknown Unknowns (Kevin Bryan, Michael Ryall, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Strategy Science 7 (2022), 157-189. Slides, Preprint.
Prudent Rationalizability in Generalized Extensive-Form Games with Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics 21 (Special Issue on Unawareness) (2021), 525-556. Preprint
Introduction to the Special Issue on Unawareness, B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics 21 (2021), 355-360.
Political
Awareness, Microtargeting of Voters and Negative Electoral
Campaigning (Burkhard C. Schipper and Hee Yeul Woo),
Quarterly Journal of Political Science 14 (2019), 41-88. Preprint
Does
Exposure to Unawareness Affect Risk Preferences? A
Preliminary Result (Wenjun Ma and Burkhard C. Schipper),
Theory and Decision 83 (2017), 245–257. Preprint,
Stata Do-file/Data
Self-Confirming Games: Unawareness, Discovery, and Equilibrium (Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, Proceedings of the Sixteens Conference (TARK 2017), Jerome Lang (Ed.), Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 251, 470–488.
Awareness (Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Handbook of Epistemic Logic, Chapter 3, H. van Ditmarsch, J.Y. Halpern, W. van der Hoek and B. Kooi (Eds.), College Publications, London, 2015, 77–146.
Speculative Trade under Unawareness - The Infinite Case (Martin Meier and Burkhard C. Schipper), Economic Theory Bulletin 2 (2014), 147-160. Preprint
Unawareness - A Gentle Introduction to both the Literature and the Special Issue (Burkhard C. Schipper), Mathematical Social Sciences 70 (2014), 1-9. Preprint
Preference-Based Unawareness (Burkhard C. Schipper), Mathematical Social Sciences 70 (2014), 34-41. PreprintBayesian Games with Unawareness and Unawareness Perfection (Martin Meier and Burkhard C. Schipper), Economic Theory 56 (2014), 219-249. Preprint
Dynamic Unawareness and Rationalizable Behavior (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Games and Economic Behavior 81 (2013), 50-68. Preprint
Unawareness, Beliefs, and Speculative Trade (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Games and Economic Behavior 77 (2013), 100-121. Prior version with the universal type space
Awareness-Dependent Subjective Expected Utility (Burkhard C. Schipper), International Journal of Game Theory 42 (2013), 725-753. Preprint
Two Models of Unawareness: Comparing the Object-Based and Subjective-State-Space Approaches (Oliver Board, Kim-Sau Chung, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Synthese 179 (2011), 13-34. Preprint
A Canonical Model for Interactive Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Games and Economic Behavior 62 (2008), 305-324. Preprint
A Canonical Model for Interactive Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, Proceedings of the 11th Conference (TARK 2007), Dov Samet (Ed.), Presses Universitaires De Louvain, 177-182.
Unawareness, Beliefs and Games (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, Proceedings of the 11th Conference (TARK 2007), Dov Samet (Ed.), Presses Universitaires De Louvain, 183-192.
Interactive Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), Journal of Economic Theory 130 (2006), 78-94. Preprint
Multi-Person Unawareness (Aviad Heifetz, Martin Meier, and Burkhard C. Schipper), in: Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge, Proceedings of the Ninth Conference (TARK 2003), Moshe Tennenholtz (Ed.), ACM, 145-158.