arXiv subjects

Henrik Petri

Publications and source records attributed to Henrik Petri.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Stochastic Choice with Advertising

We study how advertised products (e.g., Top Picks, Recommended, Featured) affect consumer choice on digital platforms and retail interfaces by extending the Luce (1959) (or multinomial logit) model. A consumer either focuses on the advertised items or considers the full menu, then chooses among the considered alternatives according to the Luce/logit rule. We characterize this model and show that its underlying primitives are uniquely identified from choice data. We also study a managerially important advertisement-design problem, in which a platform or retailer chooses the advertised subset to maximize expected profit, and we derive implementable design rules. We then introduce a richer framework in which advertising can influence both attention and preference. For this more general model, we provide a characterization and show how choice data can be used to separate the attention effect from the preference effect.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2025

Irrational Random Utility Models

The Random Utility Model (RUM) is the leading model to represent the aggregate choices of a heterogeneous population of preference maximizers. We show that if (and only if) preferences are sufficiently uncorrelated, RUM choices can also be generated by a population of decision makers who do not maximize any preference. In proving this result, we also characterize the general class of choices generated by such irrational populations, with applications beyond the RUM framework. We discuss the relevance of our results for the falsifiability of the rational interpretation of RUMs, the inference of individual rationality from aggregate choices, and the nature of welfare judgments.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2025

The Luce Model, Regularity, and Choice Overload

We characterize regularity (Block & Marschak, 1960) within a novel stochastic model: the General Threshold Luce model [GTLM]. We apply our results to study choice overload, identified by regularity violations that impose a welfare cost on the decision-maker. Generalizing our characterization results, we identify necessary and sufficient conditions for choice overload within GTLMs and, in doing so, disentangle two well-known causes: low discriminatory power (Frick, 2016) and limited attention (Lleras et al., 2017).

econ.TH↗

arXiv2018

No bullying! A playful proof of Brouwer's fixed-point theorem

We give an elementary proof of Brouwer's fixed-point theorem. The only mathematical prerequisite is a version of the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem: a sequence in a compact subset of $n$-dimensional Euclidean space has a convergent subsequence with a limit in that set. Our main tool is a `no-bullying' lemma for agents with preferences over indivisible goods. What does this lemma claim? Consider a finite number of children, each with a single indivisible good (a toy) and preferences over those toys. Let's say that a group of children, possibly after exchanging toys, could bully some poor kid if all group members find their own current toy better than the toy of this victim. The no-bullying lemma asserts that some group $S$ of children can redistribute their toys among themselves in such a way that all members of $S$ get their favorite toy from $S$, but they cannot bully anyone.

math.GN↗