A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumer's Behaviour
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9723725 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul A Samuelson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1938 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 17 |
| Pages | 61 |
| Publication date | 1938-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0427 • E-ISSN: 1468-0335 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2548836 |
| OpenAlex | W2323086467 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 271 |
FROM its very beginning the theory of consumer's choice has marched steadily towards greater generality, sloughing off at successive stages unnecessarily restrictive conditions. From the time of Gossen to our own day we have seen the removal of (a) the assumption of linearity of marginal utility; (b) the assumption of independence of utilities; (c) the assumption of the measurability of utility in a cardinal sense; and (d) even the assumption of an integrable field of preference elements.. The discrediting of utility as a. psychological concept robbed it of its only possible virtue as an explanation -of human behaviour in other than a circular sense, revealing its emptiness as even a construction. As a result the most modern theory confines itself to an analysis of indifference elements, budgetary equilibrium being defined by equivalence of price ratios to respective indifference slopes. Consistently applied, however, the modern criticism turns back on itself and cuts deeply. For just as we do not claim to know by introspection the behaviour of utility, many will argue we cannot know the behaviour of ratios of marginal utilities or of indifference directions. Why should one believe in the increasing rate of marginal substitution, except in so far as it leads to the type of demand functions in the market which seem plausible ? Even on the advanced front we are confronted with this dilemma -either the argument with respect to indifference varieties is circular or to many people inadmissible (at least without further demonstration). Hence, despite the fact that the notion of utility has been repudiated or ignored by modern theory, it is clear that much of even the most modern analysis shows vestigial traces of the utility concept. Thus, to any person not
Argument (complex analysis) · Dilemma · Economics · Epistemology · Generality · Introspection · Marginal utility · Mathematical economics · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Positive economics · Preference · Virtue · Economic Theory and Institutions · Philosophy
The Contested Grounds of Democracy's Noninstrumental Value
The attention–aversion gap
Simulation of Behavior of Hotel and Restaurant Business Staff in the Conditions of Covid-19 Viral Pandemic
El estatuto teórico de la niñez y de la juventud en la reflexión económica
Poverty Naturalized
Contending Conceptions of the Theory of Rational Action
La preferencia revelada frente al enfoque utilitarista
The Effect of the 2015 Reform of the Personalized Autonomy Allowance on the Care Plans Notified to Beneficiaries
Introduction to the Thematic Section on Health Economics
Combining Work and a Pension – Individual Determining Factors and Combiners’ Profiles
Preferences of the French Population Regarding Access to Genetic Information
Must-Trade and Catch-Up’ – Do the Self-Employed Under-Invest in Their Health
Linking Migration Reasons and Origins to Labour Market Outcomes
Epistemology, Normative Theory and Poverty Analysis
In defence of revealed preference theory
Biases in belief reports
Limited attention and models of choice
Qual o valor do auto-interesse
Better residential than ethnic discrimination! Reconciling audit and interview findings in the Parisian housing market
Psychologie individuelle et stabilité d'un équilibre général concurrentiel dans le Traité d'économie pure de Maurice Allais
El legado de Samuelson. La preferencia revelada
Maximizing or Satisficing
The theory of decision making
Identifying robust correlates of risk preference
The ability to choose can increase satiation
Early Experiments in Consumer Demand Theory
Non-Binary Social Choice
Revealed Preference Axioms for Rational Choice
Apriorisme et théorie du choix rationnel
From warfare to welfare
Respondent Screening and Revealed Preference Axioms
An Introduction to Decision Theory
An Engine, Not a Camera
Adaptive Thinking
Economics, Philosophy of
Action in Society
Models of Revealed Preference
Value
Psychometrics
Microeconomics, History of
CHAPTER 1 Expected Utility Theory
Estimates of Cost of Crime
Qualitative Freiheit
Valuing Freedoms
The Methodology of Experimental Economics
Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap
Welfare, preference and freedom
The Effects of Wealth and Income on Subjective Well‐Being and Ill‐Being
Risk preference shares the psychometric structure of major psychological traits
Measuring Expectations
Giving According to Garp
How are preferences revealed?
Una revisión de aportaciones que contribuyeron al estudio de la utilidad y la felicidad en la economía
Group Consumption with Caring Individuals
Simple Heuristics in a Social World
Mentalism Versus Behaviourism in Economics
Market Demand Functions in the Capm
Multi-valued demand and rational choice in the two-commodity case
Nash Bargained Consumption Decisions
Measuring Rationality with the Minimum Cost of Revealed Preference Violations
Revealed Preference Analysis of Non‐Cooperative Household Consumption
Property, Institutions, and Social Stratification in Africa
The concept of "behavior" in psychology, epistemology, and economics. Starting from G.H. Mead
Social preferences and well-being
Should rational socioeconomic agents attempt to exert ‘control’ over the evolution of their preference or behavioral parameters
Economic Analysis of Institutions
Collective Agency and Coalitional Power in Games
The Specter of Revealed Preference Theory
Education, Income, and Happiness
The Inversion Problem
Sustainability going viral
Understanding user preferences in recommender systems
A. G. Papandreou’s Academic Economic Thought 1943–1963
Uncertainty goes mainstream
Decision over Time as a By-Product of a Measure of Utility
Normative and behavioural economics
Is future bias just a manifestation of the temporal value asymmetry
The choice of music consumption modes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Nonparametric analysis of the mixed-demand model
Unitary or collective households? A nonparametric rationality and separability test using detailed data on consumption expenditures and time use
Preferences, goals and implications for paternalism
Choice resolutions
The behavioral economics of dynamically inconsistent behavior
Dynamic choice under familiarity-based attention
Which Value Counts? Towards a Decolonial Perspective on Value Creation
Value Judgements, Positivism and Utility Comparisons in Economics
Nudge Me If You Can! Why Order Ethicists Should Embrace the Nudge Approach
Game Theory and Demonstratives
Set and revealed preference axioms for multi-valued choice
Resolutions of Probabilistic Choice Spaces
Von Neumann–Morgenstern stable set rationalization of choice functions
Revealing preference discovery
Law of demand and stochastic choice
Quasi-transitive and Suzumura consistent rationalizing relations
Reply to commentators
Incommensurability and consistency
The linguistic dead zone of value-aligned agency, natural and artificial
Good guesses as accuracy-specificity tradeoffs
The Certainty Effect for Gains and Losses Emerges in Joint Evaluation but Not Always in Separate Evaluation
Weakness of will. The limitations of revealed preference theory
| Unique citing works | 271 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,76 |
| Citation span | 1954 - 2026 (73) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 242 |