Revealed Preference Test and Shortest Path Problem; Graph Theoretic Structure of the Rationalizability Test

Kohei Shiozawa ()
Additional contact information
Kohei Shiozawa: Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University

No 15-17-Rev., Discussion Papers in Economics and Business from Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics

Abstract: This paper presents some substantial relationships between revealed preference tests for a data set and the shortest path problem in a network (a directed graph with weighted edges), using a simple and straightforward graph theoretic argument. We clarify the interpretation of revealed preference tests, refine Afriat inequalities, and give a unified perspective of several forms of rationalizability tests and the classical utility representation problem of preferences. Furthermore, we provide an additional graph theoretic structure, which we call the shortest path problem with weight adjustment. This is a common structure for several rationalizability tests. The proposed structure leads to effcient algorithms for checking rationalizability conditions, and for computing a solution to the Afriat inequalities if the data are rationalizable in several settings.

Keywords: Revealed preference; Afriat inequalities; shortest path problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C60 D11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2015-06, Revised 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osk:wpaper:1517r

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics and Business from Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The Economic Society of Osaka University ().