An information-theoretic thought experiment is developed to provide a methodology for predicting endowment distributions in the absence of information on agent preferences. The allocation problem is first presented as a stylised knapsack problem. Although this knapsack allocation is intractable,...

Modern mainstream economics teach us that Marshallian consumer surplus concept can be correctly applied only in the special case of quasilinear preferences (when price of numeraire is normalized to unity), which is never observed in reality. Our paper shows the opposite: we can every time...

There is a growing body of research in economics that studies the consequences of time-inconsistent preferences. This paper introduces time-inconsistent preferences in a general equilibrium setting. We discuss how the standard notion of competitive equilibrium should be extended in order to...

We define necessary and sufficient conditions on prices and incomes under which quantity choices can violate SARP (Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference) but not WARP (Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference). As SARP extends WARP by additionally imposing transitivity on the revealed preference...

Many studies document failures of expected utility's key assumption, the independence axiom. Here, we show that independence can be decomposed into two distinct axioms - betweenness and homotheticity - and that these two axioms are necessary and sufficient for independence. Thus, independence...

We provide a nonparametric 'revealed preference' characterization of rational household behavior in terms of the collective consumption model, while accounting for general (possibly non-convex) individual preferences. We establish a Collective Axiom of Revealed Preference (CARP), which provides...

This paper extends standard consumer theory to account for endogenous moral motivation. Building on cognitive dissonance theory, I show how moral values are affected by changes in prices and income. The key insight is that changes in prices and income that lead to higher consumption of an...

A nonparametric approach is presented to test whether decisions on a probability simplex could be induced by quasiconcave preferences. Necessary and sufficient conditions are presented. If the answer is affirmative, the methods developed here allow to reconstruct bounds on indifference curves....

Non-positivity of the generalized substitution effect, non-positivity of the own-price substitution effect, homogeneity of degree zero in all prices and income, and the law of demand are some of the most primitive comparative static results in the standard revealed preference theory of...