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Published October 28, 2022 | public
Report

How Strong is the Weak Axiom

Abstract

We investigate the manner in which the power of the weak axiom of revealed preference is affected by the completeness of the choice environment. We fully characterize those domains on which the weak axiom coincides with strong rationalizability for arbitrary choice correspondences. We also provide a related result that characterizes those domains on which the strong rationalizability of a choice correspondence is equivalent to (i) the satisfaction of the weak axiom, and (ii) the strong rationalizability of its restrictions to suitable collections of small sets. Our proof technique involves a generalization of many of the differential concepts of classical demand theory to the abstract choice model. We conclude with an application to the problem of aggregating incomplete preferences.

Additional Information

I would like to thank my advisor Christopher Chambers for his continual advice, support, and encouragement over the course of this project. I would also like to thank Axel Anderson, Asen Kochov, Roger Lagunoff, Jacopo Perego, John Quah, Koji Shirai, Andrea Wilson, and the seminar audiences at SAET 2019, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown for their helpful comments

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023