Relational Theory of Risk and Its Applications to Game Theory Problems of Non-Numerical Economics

The purpose of the work is to study the foundations of a general risk theory. To form a single formal concept of risk, a number of definitions of the term “risk” found in the literature have been analyzed. There is a certain redundancy in the number of entities involved in the definition of this term. The necessary attributes of the genesis of this concept have been identified. Based on the analysis, using the instrumentation of modern algebra, a new formal, mathematically strict definition of risk is built. In fact, the paper proposes a new relational theory of risk, attracting only two entities to define the concept of “risk”: set and order of preference, inducing on this set the minimum structure of a semilattice or family of semilattices. The paper also describes an approach for studying in theoretical-risk setting problems in which there is no risk, in the traditional sense, in which the preference relation does not induce a semilattice and/or is a preorder. It is shown that in this case, when identifying a suitable equivalence relation on a set of outcomes, the problem can be reduced to a classical theoretical-risk setting. The second part of the paper contains an example of the direct use of a new relational risk theory in the study of nonnumerical economies. The problem of analysis of the situation of confrontation between two technologically unequal countries in game-theoretical staging is considered. We are talking about a grandiose space program - the organization of manned flights to Mars. The scales of the object of confrontation, the impossibility of quantitative assessments of the consequences of the implementation of scenarios of this project, make any quantitative assessments impossible at the stage of preliminary analysis. Therefore, only expert estimates of preferences at multiple outcomes can be used as initial data for confrontation analysis. Under these conditions, the emergence of certain risks of the project implementation for both players was demonstrated. During the analysis of the example illustrating the application of the new relational risk theory, a number of optimality principles considered in game theory were extended to the case when only partial orders are given on a set of game outcomes. As the methodological basis of the research we used the achievements of modern algebra, in particular the theory of relational systems, as well as the concepts and methods of game theory, such as representing the game in normal form, selecting dominant and eliminating dominant strategies, choosing solutions from many cautious strategies, as well as from the set of Nash Equilibria. The main result of the paper is the substantiation of relational risk theory, the formation of its conceptual base, the demonstration of the constructive nature of the theory on the example of solving a specific problem of risk analysis in an economic system described in terms of non-numerical characteristics. The material presented in the article is of interest to researchers in the field of risk theory and game theory, as well as to practitioners engaged in socio-economic and political forecasting in conditions of lack of information.