Title: On Estimating Multi-Attribute Choice Preferences using Private Signals and Matrix Factorization,
Abstract: Revealed preference theory studies the possibility of modeling an agent's
revealed preferences and the construction of a consistent utility function.
However, modeling agent's choices over preference orderings is not always
practical and demands strong assumptions on human rationality and
data-acquisition abilities. Therefore, we propose a simple generative choice
model where agents are assumed to generate the choice probabilities based on
latent factor matrices that capture their choice evaluation across multiple
attributes. Since the multi-attribute evaluation is typically hidden within the
agent's psyche, we consider a signaling mechanism where agents are provided
with choice information through private signals, so that the agent's choices
provide more insight about his/her latent evaluation across multiple
attributes. We estimate the choice model via a novel multi-stage matrix
factorization algorithm that minimizes the average deviation of the factor
estimates from choice data. Simulation results are presented to validate the
estimation performance of our proposed algorithm.