revealed preference

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revealed preference

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Coined by American economist Paul Samuelson in the title of his 1948 paper expounding a theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits. Samuelson first published a version of his theory ten years earlier, in a 1938 paper, but did not use the term revealed preference in the 1938 paper.

revealed preference (countable and uncountable, plural revealed preferences)

1. A consumer preference as inferred from purchasing habits according to a theory invented by American economist Paul A. Samuelson.
   • 1948, Paul A. Samuelson (November 1948), "Consumption theory in terms of revealed preference", Economica, New Series, 15(60):243–253, DOI:10.2307/2549561, JSTOR:2549561, page 243 (article title):

     Consumption theory in terms of revealed preference

   • 1998, Katherine M. Harris and Michael P. Keane (26 November 1998 ), A model of health plan choice: inferring preferences and perceptions from a combination of revealed preference and attitudinal data, Journal of Econometrics, 89(1–2):131–157, DOI:10.1016/S0304-4076(98)00058-X, page 132:

     Thus, we observe the elderly’s revealed preference for health plan combinations with different features.

   • 2003, Richard W. Blundell, Martin Browning, and Ian A. Crawford (January 2003), "Nonparametric Engel curves and revealed preference", Econometrica, 71(1):205–240, DOI:10.1111/1468-0262.00394, page 205:

     Knowledge of expansion paths is shown to improve the power of nonparametric tests of revealed preference.

   • 2023 June 9, Ezra Klein, “The Ezra Klein Show: What Communes and Other Radical Experiments in Living Together Reveal”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     And how do you think about the arguably revealed preference of wealth leading to separation that might suggest this isn’t actually what people want, maybe sometimes what they’re forced to accept.

2. (uncountable) Samuelson's theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits.
   • 1973, Ann F. Friedlaender (February 1973), "Macro policy goals in the postwar period: a study in revealed preference", Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(1):25–43, page 25:

     This paper reports on an attempt to apply revealed preference to the activities of the federal government to determine the weights it attached to various macro policy goals during the Eisenhower and Kennedy-Johnson administrations.

   • 2005, Yusufcan Masatlioglu and Efe A. Ok (March 2005), "Rational choice with status quo bias", Journal of Economic Theory, 121(1):1–29 (DOI:10.1016/j.jet.2004.03.007), page 1:

     We follow a revealed preference approach, and obtain two nested models of rational choice that allow phenomena like the status quo bias and the endowment effect, and that are applicable in any choice situation to which the standard (static) choice model applies.

   • 2011, John C. Whitehead, Timothy C. Haab, and Ju-Chin Huang, chapter 1: "Introduction" (pages 1–9), in John C. Whitehead, Timothy C. Haab, and Ju-Chin Huang, editors (2011), Preference data for environmental valuation: combining revealed and stated approaches, Routledge Explorations in Environmental Economics (New York: Routledge), →ISBN, page 1:

     Most economists, however, are firmly rooted in the revealed preference paradigm to estimate the use values of environmental resources.

• foot voting
• vote with one's feet