We unify and expand the theory of consumer’s behavior, based on Samuelson’s Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference, to permit simultaneously both random choice and non-singleton choice sets. We provide a consistency postulate for demand behavior when such behavior is represented in terms of a stochastic demand correspondence. When the consumer spends her entire wealth, our rationality postulate is equivalent to a condition we term stochastic substitutability. This equivalence generates: (i) Samuelson’s Substitution Theorem, (ii) the central result in Bandyopadhyay, Dasgupta and Pattanaik (2004) and (iii) a version pertinent to deterministic demand correspondences (which independently yields Samuelson’s Substitution Theorem), as alternative special cases. Relevant versions of the non-positivity of the own substitution effect, the demand theorem and homogeneity of degree zero in prices and wealth for the consumer’s demand behavior, also follow as corollaries in every case.
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Paper provided by University of Nottingham, School of Economics in its series Discussion Papers with number
07/06.
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