Talk:Preference (economics)

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

sexual preference

It is very clear that sexual preference has nothing to do with economics, this art needs breaking up into a disambig. In process now.SatuSuro 04:22, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The non-economic aspect of this art has gone to a new Preference (behaviour) Please feel free to re-arrange if offended by what seems an obious needed change SatuSuro 04:32, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Preference (behaviour).--Patrick 01:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong agree. This page needs to be moved, and a disamiguation page set in its place. Legis 12:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First thing we need to do is this: Disambiguation pages:

Preference (economics), as the term is used in economics and related fields
Preference, the sexual preference of human beings
Preferred stock, preference stock or preference shares, a form of corporate equity ownership
Preference or preferans, a card game
Unfair preference, a legal term

Please comment. Otherwise, I will be bold and move all material about economics to new entry called Preference (economics).--Forich (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tribute

Thanks to those that have synthesized a magnificent open source entry for Preference.

Beautiful conTribution! --Dialectic 15:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

preference relation

The preference relation is type set here to look like less than or equal to, but this is not the preffered character. The wikiML does not appear to have the right character, is there anything to be done? Pdbailey 20:33, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, what we need is (in PlainTeX) \succ and \succeq

\succ \succeq

Pdbailey 20:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

anybody know how these were added? Pdbailey 01:47, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Transitive preferences

If a consumer has a preference relation that violates transitivity, then an unscrupulous person can milk them as follows. Suppose the consumer has an apple, and prefers apples to oranges, oranges to bananas, and bananas to apples. Then, the consumer would be prepared to pay, say, one cent to trade their apple for a banana, because they prefer bananas to apples. After that, they would pay once cent to trade their banana for an orange, and again the orange for an apple, and so on.

First of all I would suggest using exploit rather than milk. Second, it simply isn't true. The budget constraint would eventually mean that the consumer runs out of money, even if you looked at it over time. Also, you might have a consumer who prefers a specific amount of one good but dislikes any other amount even if it is larger than the preffered amount. Such a consumer does not have transitive preferences and may choose not to spend his entire income. One point raised by critics of transitive preferences is that socially responsible consumers may choose not to be "greedy". But that does not imply that they can be exploited.

The reason economists assume transitive preferences is to ensure that we can use a utility function. However, even if preferences weren't transitive we could still maximise them but we would have to use a more general concept known as a correspondance. Functions are a subclass of correspondances that provide a unique mapping. Correspondances in genral do not ensure this, hence we get either corner solutions or multiple solutions. The article completely misses this point. MartinDK 17:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Assumptions of Consumer Preference Theory

Anyone othe than a mathematician could not help to be impressed if not itimidated by the axiomatic basis for consumer preference theory. What is rarely told to the econ major grappling with terms like transitive, reflexive lexicographic is that the axioms are not properties of some deep escoteric economic relationship. The axioms are used so economist can do the math. Whether the use of "higher" mathematics really provides additional insigts into economic interactions and relationships is debatable. As Binger and Hoffman note in their textbook "Taken together [the axioms] are simpy fundamental properties of real numbers which we wish to use to construct the utility index." Binger & Hoffman, Microeconomics with Calculus (Addison=Wesley 1998) at 112.--Jgard5000 (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)jgard5000. In discussing the assumptions of nonsatiation and diminishing marginal rates of substitution Binger and Hoffman state, "The assumptions are not necessary for representing consumer preferences in terms of utility functions over goods, but they allow economists to use the calculus of constrained optimization to analyze consumer choice." Id. at 113. Whether using "the calculus of constrained optimization" is really helpful in analyzing consumer cboice is not often addressed.--Jgard5000 (talk) 19:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)Jgard5000 (As one famous economist said "Any idiot can do calculus" - or maybe he was a mathematician???)[reply]

And? This is something to discuss in a first-year theory class, but what does it mean for this article? CRETOG8(t/c) 20:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LaTeX commands preferred, indifferent, not preferred to

Does anyone know how the commands for 'preferred to' indifferent .. are in LaTeX? Maybe it's worth adding it than only to mention that there are some notations..

Regards —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.12.129.20 (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Major rewrite - coming soon

Hello fellow editors! I will be starting to work on this entry, since it needs lots of improvement. I am gonna add a template for author maintenance, hope you don't mind. cheers.--Forich (talk) 22:53, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Game Theory Template

I don't think the Game-theory-category-template is appropiate for this entry. I tend to associate preferences with consumer theory, with no interaction among agents. --Forich (talk) 21:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have just removed the aforementioned template, and replaced it with a microeconomics one.--Forich (talk) 02:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes by user GeraldineCoppin

I'm writing this comment here because User GeraldineCoppin does not have a user page. His comments seem to be well-referenced, at least for psychology. However, I suggest that he: i) start a user page so that we can post this kind of feedback directly on a user talk page and, ii) Check out this disambiguation page to see if it is OK, and/or comment on this proposal of change. Thank you.--Forich (talk) 14:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move notice

The page currently have content from psychology and also some content related to a sort of sexual preference. I will move all content to Preference (economics), as the term is used in economics and related fields, and I will have this other disambiguation pages:

Preference, the sexual preference of human beings
Preference, as the term is used in psychology
Preferred stock, preference stock or preference shares, a form of corporate equity ownership
Preference or preferans, a card game
Unfair preference, a legal term

Please comment. --Forich (talk) 05:47, 1 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

the reflexivity axiom

I read in Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green, that the axiom of reflexivity is redundant, since the completeness property implies it already. What does everyone think of erasing reflexivity from the entry? --Forich (talk) 01:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wish reflexivity would go away since it's redundant, but it seems to still be a part of reviews of this material. I'd be OK with removal, but probably optimal would be to include it as an aside and note that it's not really necessary. That way if someone comes here and is matching this document to another source they won't be baffled about two different sets of criteria. CRETOG8(t/c) 18:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Implication of the theorem works both ways?

Does anyone know if this theorem is sufficient (if and only if)?: If preferences are transitive and complete then there exists a utility function that represents them.

I read somewhere that the implication only works the other way around: "If there is a utility function that represents preferences, THEN the preferences are complete and transitive (always)". Please comment. --Forich (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suppose preferences are complete and transitive. These conditions are not sufficient to ensure that a utility function exists representing them. Consider the case of lexicographic preferences in the case where commodities are taken from a space in which quantities can take on a continuum of values. -- RLV 151.190.0.1 (talk) 12:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images

What would be a good image for this entry? Any suggestions? --Forich (talk) 02:17, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think your graphic makes sense. I'm wondering if it would be better to use the "weakly prefers" symbol instead of strict preference, since weak preference is usually used as the primitive in theory. (At the same time, strict preference is more intuitive and easier to talk about.) CRETOG8(t/c) 19:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]