IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-01386451.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Tree that Hides the Forest: A Note on Revealed Preference

Author

Listed:
  • João V. Ferreira

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The common interpretation given to choice behavior that satisfies the traditional revealed preference axioms is that it results from the maximization of a single preference. We show that choice data alone does not enable one to rule out the possibility that the choice behavior that satisfies the revealed preference axioms is instead the result of the aggregation of a collection of distinct preferences. In particular, we show that any ordering is observationally equivalent to a majoritarian aggregation of a collection of distinct dichotomous orderings. We also show that any ordering is observationally equivalent to a Borda's aggregation of a collection of distinct linear orderings.

Suggested Citation

  • João V. Ferreira, 2016. "The Tree that Hides the Forest: A Note on Revealed Preference," Working Papers halshs-01386451, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-01386451
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01386451
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01386451/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Browning & P. A. Chiappori, 1998. "Efficient Intra-Household Allocations: A General Characterization and Empirical Tests," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(6), pages 1241-1278, November.
    2. Cherchye, Laurens & De Rock, Bram & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2010. "An Afriat Theorem for the collective model of household consumption," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1142-1163, May.
    3. Hausman, Daniel M., 2000. "Revealed preference, belief, and game theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 99-115, April.
    4. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & A. Joshua Strickland, 2010. "Social Identity and Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1913-1928, September.
    5. Lee Gibson & Robert Powers, 2012. "An extension of McGarvey’s theorem from the perspective of the plurality collective choice mechanism," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(1), pages 101-108, January.
    6. Michel Le Breton & Guillaume Hollard, 1996. "Logrolling and a McGarvey theorem for separable tournaments," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 13(4), pages 451-455.
    7. Varian, Hal R, 1982. "The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 945-973, July.
    8. Sen, Amartya & Pattanaik, Prasanta K., 1969. "Necessary and sufficient conditions for rational choice under majority decision," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 178-202, August.
    9. Rajat Deb, 1976. "On Constructing Generalized Voting Paradoxes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 43(2), pages 347-351.
    10. LeBoeuf, Robyn A. & Shafir, Eldar & Bayuk, Julia Belyavsky, 2010. "The conflicting choices of alternating selves," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 48-61, January.
    11. Amartya K. Sen, 1971. "Choice Functions and Revealed Preference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(3), pages 307-317.
    12. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti, 2007. "Sequentially Rationalizable Choice," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1824-1839, December.
    13. Karla Hoff & Priyanka Pandey, 2006. "Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 206-211, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Griffith, Rachel & O'Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate & Cherchye, Laurens & De Rock, Bram & Vermeulen, Frederic, 2017. "A new year, a new you? Heterogeneity and self-control in food purchases," CEPR Discussion Papers 12499, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Arthur Lewbel & Frederic Vermeulen, 2015. "Sharing Rule Identification for General Collective Consumption Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 2001-2041, September.
    3. Attila Ambrus & Kareen Rozen, 2015. "Rationalising Choice with Multi‐self Models," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(585), pages 1136-1156, June.
    4. Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Vincenzo Platino, 2013. "Private versus public consumption within groups: testing the nature of goods from aggregate data," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 54(3), pages 485-500, November.
    5. Fabrice Talla Nobibon & Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock & Jeroen Sabbe & Frits Spieksma, 2011. "Heuristics for Deciding Collectively Rational Consumption Behavior," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 38(2), pages 173-204, August.
    6. Dietrich, Franz & List, Christian, 2016. "Mentalism Versus Behaviourism In Economics: A Philosophy-Of-Science Perspective," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(2), pages 249-281, July.
    7. Fehr, Ernst & Hoff, Karla, 2011. "Tastes, castes, and culture : the influence of society on preferences," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5760, The World Bank.
    8. Hoff, Karla & Pandey, Priyanka, 2014. "Making up people—The effect of identity on performance in a modernizing society," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 118-131.
    9. Daniel J. Benjamin & James J. Choi & Geoffrey Fisher, 2016. "Religious Identity and Economic Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 617-637, October.
    10. Smeulders, Bart & Crama, Yves & Spieksma, Frits C.R., 2019. "Revealed preference theory: An algorithmic outlook," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 272(3), pages 803-815.
    11. Degan, Arianna & Merlo, Antonio, 2009. "Do voters vote ideologically?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(5), pages 1868-1894, September.
    12. Sabrina Bruyneel & Laurens Cherchye & Bram De Rock, 2012. "Collective consumption models with restricted bargaining weights: an empirical assessment based on experimental data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 395-421, September.
    13. Clist, Paul & Verschoor, Arjan, 2017. "Multilingualism and public goods provision: An experiment in two languages in Uganda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 47-57.
    14. Attila Ambrus & Kareen Rozen, 2008. "Revealed Conflicting Preferences," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002161, David K. Levine.
    15. Arianna Degan & Antonio Merlo, 2007. "Do Voters Vote Ideologically?, Third Version," PIER Working Paper Archive 08-034, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Aug 2008.
    16. Fabrice Talla Nobibon & Laurens Cherchye & Yves Crama & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Frits C. R. Spieksma, 2016. "Revealed Preference Tests of Collectively Rational Consumption Behavior: Formulations and Algorithms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 1197-1216, December.
    17. Hoff, Karla & Pandey, Priyanka, 2012. "Making up people -- the effect of identity on preferences and performance in a modernizing society," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6223, The World Bank.
    18. Ghosal, Sayantan & Dalton, Patricio, 2013. "Characterizing Behavioral Decisions with Choice Data," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 107, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    19. Clark, Stephen A., 1995. "Indecisive choice theory," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 155-170, October.
    20. Cherchye, L.J.H. & Demuynck, T. & de Rock, B., 2009. "Degrees of Cooperation in Household Consumption Models : A Revealed Preference Analysis," Discussion Paper 2009-91, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    revealed preference theory; rationalization; dichotomous preferences; aggregation rules; choice data;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-01386451. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.