Abstract
A body of data and theory has been developing within psychology that should be of interest to economists. Taken at face value the data are simply inconsistent with preference theory and have broad implications about research priorities within economics. The inconsistency is deeper than the mere lack of transitivity or even stochastic transitivity. It suggests that no optimization principles of any sort lie behind even the simplest of human choices and that the uniformities in human choice behavior that lie behind market behavior may result from principles that are of a completely different sort from those generally accepted. This chapter reports the results of a series of experiments designed to discredit the psychologists' works as applied to economics.
Keywords
Transitive relationsortPreferenceFace (sociological concept)PhenomenonPositive economicsRevealed preferenceValue (mathematics)EconomicsProspect theoryMathematical economicsPsychologyEpistemologySocial psychologyMathematicsNeoclassical economicsSociologyMicroeconomicsSocial sciencePhilosophyStatistics
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Publication Info
- Year
- 2006
- Type
- book-chapter
- Pages
- 77-94
- Citations
- 1191
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
David M. Grether,
Charles R. Plott
(2006).
Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon.
Cambridge University Press eBooks
, 77-94.
https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511618031.006
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1017/cbo9780511618031.006