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B. Hill’s ‘Confidence’ Approach to Decision Making Under Uncertainty Completely Overlooks the Contributions Made in J M Keynes’s Parts II -V of His a Treatise on Probability, 1921 and General Theory, 1936: Keynes’s Interval Valued Approach to Imprecise Probability and Decision Weight Approach Appeared Some 60–80 Years Before Hill Began His Research Program

2020; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.3720456

1556-5068

Michael Emmett Brady,

Economic Theory and Policy

B. Hill’s work on the “Confidence approach “ to decision making under uncertainty is based on the use of interval valued probability that is categorized as being imprecise, in contrast to the standard Bayesian requirement that a probability assessment must be precise. This requirement is imposed by ignoring the issue of the relative strength or weakness of the supporting evidence upon which the assessment of different probabilities is being based ,or what Adam Smith referred to in 1776 in the Wealth of Nations as the differing quality of the supporting evidence.Hill’s work overlooks the work done by J M Keynes in this area some 80 -100 years before his work appeared .The conclusion reached is that what Hill views as being a new, novel, original, creative, and innovative approach is, in fact, when compared to Keynes’s much earlier work, a marginal or incremental improvement only.The problem is Hill’s reliance on the very poor work done on Keynes’s contributions by B. Weatherson and I J Good. This work is based only on chapters I-IV and a severe misreading of chapter VI of Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability, as well as overlooking Keynes’s application of his work on pp.309-315 of the A Treatise on Probability in chapter 26 to Keynes’s discussions of confidence in the General Theory.None of Keynes’s technical work in Parts II -V of the A treatise on Probability or the General Theory is ever mentioned by Hill.Hill’s overlooking of Keynes’s contributions is representative of the current level of understanding of Keynes’s contributions exhibited by members of SIPTA as of the year 2020.