Research ArticleOpen AccessGoogle Scholar indexed
Another Look at Becker’s Irrational Consumer
Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA
- 1 Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA
Theoretical Economics Letters·Volume 02 (2012)·Pages 262–263·Published 2 August 2012·DOI10.4236/tel.2012.23047
Copy link · social · email
Abstract
Becker’s paper "Irrational Consumers and Economic Theory" ([1]) is a classic. This paper shows how to parameterize the process of selecting points randomly on a budget set. This parameterization also simplifies the proof that average demand curves are downward sloping and satisfy the weak axiom of revealed preference. In addition, we show that the probability distribution of random choices does not need to be restricted to a uniform distribution which Becker assumes. In fact, the distribution can be arbitrary.
KeywordsIrrational ConsumerWARPDownward Sloping Demand
- G. S. Becker, “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory,” Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 70, No. 1, 1962, pp. 1-13. doi:10.1086/258584
- W. Hildenbrand, “On the Law of Demand,” Econometrica, Vol. 51, No. 4, 1983, pp. 997-1020 doi:10.2307/1912048