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(Correspondent: Zhong Yiming) Recently, the paper authored by Associate Professor Meng Jingyi was published in Journal of Mathematical Economics (111^th issue of 2024), an important SSCI journal in economics. The paper is entitled “Mixture independence foundations for expected utility”.

In this paper, an alternative preference foundation for expected utility is provided. Our segregated approach considers four logically independent implications of the classic von Neumann–Morgenstern independence axiom. The monotonicity principle is, for a transitive relation, equivalent to monotonicity with respect to first-order stochastic dominance. Rank-dependent separability is similar to the comonotonic sure-thing principle used in the ambiguity literature. The remaining two properties are weak formulations of the independence principle which invoke the latter only for probability mixtures with the extreme, that is the best, respectively, the worst outcome. These four implications of independence, together with completeness, transitivity and continuity of a preference relation, characterize expected utility. Furthermore, if rank-dependent separability is dropped, expected utility still holds on each subset of three-outcomes lotteries that give positive probability to both the best and the worst outcomes.

The Journal of Mathematical Economics founded by Elsevier in 1974 is committed to rigorous mathematical discursive ability to express economic thought, and to promote the development of theoretical economics. This journal is recognized as an international core journal of economics by universities and research institutes at home and abroad.