# utility

Utility is taken to be an absolute, accurate measurement of how desirable something is; in particular, it differs from money in three key ways.

First, desire for it is linear (generally in economics and game a person with a lot of money receives less utility from an additional amount of money than someone with very little money).

Second, when modeling a situation, utility should include all external (the happiness received from doing a good deed, for instance).

Third, different people’s utility is incomparable. It is meaningless to ask whether one person gets more utility from a situation than another person does. Utilities for a given person can be compared only to other utilities for that person.

A utility function is a function which specifies how much utility a player gets for a particular outcome. It maps the space $S$ of all possible strategy profiles to $\mathbb{R}$.

Title utility Utility 2013-03-22 12:51:59 2013-03-22 12:51:59 Henry (455) Henry (455) 8 Henry (455) Definition msc 91A99 utility utility function