The Ellsberg Paradox
You know exactly how many red balls there are, and nothing about how many are black. Does knowing more make a bet more attractive?
19617 min read
American economics and political activism
Daniel Ellsberg
1931 – 2023
Economist and strategic analyst who trained at Harvard under Thomas Schelling and worked at the RAND Corporation. His 1961 doctoral dissertation introduced what became known as the Ellsberg Paradox, showing that people systematically prefer bets on known probabilities over bets on unknown ones — violating the axioms of subjective expected utility theory. He is equally known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, for which he faced federal espionage charges that were eventually dismissed.