Jun Hyun Ji | Economics
Jun Hyun Ji

Jun Hyun Ji

CV juj25@pitt.edu

My name is Jun Hyun, a 4th-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in microeconomic theory.

How to pronounce my first name: Joon-hyeon

Research Interest

Microeconomic theory

Working Paper

A Representation of Preference over Preferences and the Act of Choosing

June 2025 (updated)

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My wife is upset about the undone dishes.
I ask, “Why didn’t you just tell me to do it?”
She says, “Because you should want to do it.”

This paper studies how individuals value the act of choosing itself by using the concept preference over preferences. In addition to preferring outcomes, the agent likes a preference if she prefers behaving as if she holds that preference: preferring \(x\) to \(y\) is preferred to preferring \(y\) to \(x\) if she values the act of willingly giving up \(y\) for \(x\) more than giving up \(x\) for \(y\). I show that a preference over the acts of choosing has a unique representation that identifies the agent's second-order preference, which induces all standard menu preferences in the literature on self-control. Unlike how outcomes are ranked, the value of preferences is relative to contextual factors—e.g., counterintuitively, the best act of choosing may only be feasible when the best outcome is unavailable. My model also accommodates preferences over others’ preferences, analyzing choices that condition on others’ choices and the social signaling value of choice. Applications include paternalistic interventions and the problem of choosing who should choose. I discuss how these preferences can be observed.

Work in progress

Timing Decision in Model-based Persuasion

December 2024

SLIDES

Teaching

Instructor

Game Theory Principles Summer 2024

Teaching Assistant (delivered class)

Introduction to Microeconomic Theory 2023-24

(Ph.D.) Mathematical Methods of Economic Analysis 2023

(Ph.D.) Microeconomic Theory I 2022

Prior to Ph.D. program

Two Bidder Procurement Auction with Asymmetric Post-auction Bankruptcy Risk

2019

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