Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ichiro Obara
UCLA
October 8, 2012
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
1 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
2 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
3 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
4 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Here is one well-known axiom.
WARP
x
s
s
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
5 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
6 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
If a consumers choice is based on his or her preference, then the
following must be the case.
I
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
7 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Rationalizable Data
A finite data set D is rationalized by a utility function u : <L+ < if
u(x t ) u(x) for all x B(p t , p t x t ) and t = 1, ..., T .
More precisely, the question is: can we find a utility function that
rationalizes the data when the data satisfies the above axioms?
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
8 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
9 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
This example suggests that...
GARP
WARP
Rationalizable
Data
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
10 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
But it turns out that the right picture is the following.
WARP
Rationalizable
Data = GARP
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
11 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Theorem (Afriat)
The following statements are equivalent.
1
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
12 / 17
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
13 / 17
Revealed Preference
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
13 / 17
Revealed Preference
Proof of 2 3.
It can be shown that U t <, t > 0, t = 1, ..., T such that for all
i, j,
U j U i + i p i (x j x i ).
Define u by
u(x) := min U t + t p t (x x t ) .
t
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
14 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Remark.
There is a natural interpretation of the inequality that appears in the
beginning of the proof. Suppose that a consumer maximizes a
concave utility function u. Then for any x i , x j D,
u(x j ) u(x i ) + Du(x i ) x j x i
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
15 / 17
Revealed Preference
Revealed Preference
Comment
One way to interpret Afriats theorem is that, if GARP is satisfied,
then we can treat the consumer as if he or she is maximizing a
(well-behaved) utility function. So we may expect that all the
implications of utility maximization apply to this consumers demand
behavior.
Obara (UCLA)
Revealed Preference
October 8, 2012
16 / 17