Paper #952
- Títol:
- Revealed preference and indifferent selection
- Autor:
- Eric Danan
- Data:
- Abril 2006
- Resum:
- It is shown that preferences can be constructed from observed choice behavior in a way that is robust to indifferent selection (i.e., the agent is indifferent between two alternatives but, nevertheless, is only observed selecting one of them). More precisely, a suggestion by Savage (1954) to reveal indifferent selection by considering small monetary perturbations of alternatives is formalized and generalized to a purely topological framework: references over an arbitrary topological space can be uniquely derived from observed behavior under the assumptions that they are continuous and nonsatiated and that a strictly preferred alternative is always chosen, and indifferent selection is then characterized by discontinuity in choice behavior. Two particular cases are then analyzed: monotonic preferences over a partially ordered set, and preferences representable by a continuous pseudo-utility function.
- Paraules clau:
- Revealed preference, indifference, choice behavior, continuity, nonsatiation, monotonicity, pseudo-utility
- Codis JEL:
- D11
- Àrea de Recerca:
- Economia Experimental i del Comportament / Microeconomia
Descarregar el paper en format PDF