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A constructive proof of the existence of a utility in revealed preference theory

journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-01, 11:05 authored by Andrew EberhardAndrew Eberhard, Daniel Ralph, Jean-Pierre Crouzeix
Within the context of the standard model of rationality within economic modelling we show the existence of a utility function that rationalises a demand correspondence, hence completely characterizes the associated preference structure, by taking a dense demand sample. This resolves the problem of revealed preferences under some very mild assumptions on the demand correspondence which are closely related to a number of established axioms in preference theory. The proof establishes the existence of a limit of a sequences of indirect utilities that rationalise finite data sets, where the sample size increases to infinity. This limiting utility provides a rationalisation of the demand relation. Up to a rescaling this limiting indirect utility is unique and continuous on a set of full measure.

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    ISSN - Is published in 15265471
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Journal

Mathematics of Operations Research

Volume

Online

Start page

1

End page

31

Total pages

31

Publisher

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (I N F O R M S)

Place published

United States

Language

English

Copyright

© 2012

Former Identifier

2006033457

Esploro creation date

2020-06-22

Fedora creation date

2013-02-11

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