Revealed preference

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A consumer preference as inferred from purchasing habits according to a theory invented by American economist Paul A. Samuelson. countable, uncountable

    "Consumption theory in terms of revealed preference"

  2. 2
    Samuelson's theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits. uncountable

    "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."

Synonyms

All synonyms
attributive adjectivebehavioral preferencecompound adjectiveconsistency axiomdata driven preferencedemonstrated preference

Example

More examples

"Consumption theory in terms of revealed preference"

Etymology

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.

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