Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
957645 Journal of Economic Theory 2009 11 Pages PDF
Abstract

Afriat proved the equivalence of a variant of the strong axiom of revealed preference and the existence of a solution to a set of linear inequalities. From this solution he constructed a utility function rationalizing the choices of a competitive consumer. We extend Afriat's theorem to a class of nonlinear, nonconvex budget sets. We thereby obtain testable implications of rational behavior for a wide class of economic environments, and a constructive method to derive individual preferences from observed choices. We also show that by increasing in a regular way the number of observed choices from our class of budget sets one can fully identify the underlying preference relation.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Economics, Econometrics and Finance Economics and Econometrics
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