Many companies set performance targets for their divisions to decentralize the decision-making process and communicate with outside investors. This paper analyzes the effects of performance targets on the decision-making behavior of the divisions. We introduce the notion of an 'effective utility...

This paper relates normative expected-utility decision making to target-based decision making, and introduces a new quantity, the aspiration equivalent. We show that using the aspiration equivalent as a target provides a new method for choosing between lotteries that is consistent with...