IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v83y2015ip175-192.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Characterization of Rationalizable Consumer Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Philip J. Reny

Abstract

For an arbitrary data set D = {(p, x)} ⊆ (ℝ + -super-m∖ {0}) × ℝ + -super-m, finite or infinite, it is shown that the following three conditions are equivalent: (a) D satisfies GARP; (b) D can be rationalized by a utility function; (c) D can be rationalized by a utility function that is quasiconcave, nondecreasing, and that strictly increases when all its coordinates strictly increase. Examples of infinite data sets satisfying GARP are provided for which every utility rationalization fails to be lower semicontinuous, upper semicontinuous, or concave. Thus condition (c) cannot be substantively improved upon.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip J. Reny, 2015. "A Characterization of Rationalizable Consumer Behavior," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 175-192, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:83:y:2015:i::p:175-192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher P. Chambers & Federico Echenique & Nicolas S. Lambert, 2021. "Recovering Preferences From Finite Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(4), pages 1633-1664, July.
    2. Hiroki Nishimura & Efe A. Ok & John K.-H. Quah, 2017. "A Comprehensive Approach to Revealed Preference Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1239-1263, April.
    3. Polisson, Matthew & Renou, Ludovic, 2016. "Afriat’s Theorem and Samuelson’s ‘Eternal Darkness’," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 36-40.
    4. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram, 2018. "Transitivity of preferences: when does it matter?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    5. Alvaro Sandroni & Leo Katz, 2024. "The leveling axiom," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 135-152, February.
    6. Cherchye, Laurens & Demuynck, Thomas & De Rock, Bram, 2018. "Transitivity of preferences: when does it matter?," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), September.
    7. Gorno, Leandro, 2019. "Revealed preference and identification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 698-739.
    8. Heufer, Jan & van Bruggen, Paul & Yang, Jingni, 2020. "Giving According to Agreement," Discussion Paper 2020-035, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    9. Freer, Mikhail & Martinelli, César, 2021. "A utility representation theorem for general revealed preference," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 68-76.
    10. Christopher P. Chambers & Federico Echenique & Nicolas S. Lambert, 2018. "Preference Identification," Papers 1807.11585, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:83:y:2015:i::p:175-192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.