Talk:Preference (economics)

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)

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)


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

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


 * 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)

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

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

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)


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


 * $$ \succ \succeq $$


 * Pdbailey 20:33, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


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

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)

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???)


 * And? This is something to discuss in a first-year theory class, but what does it mean for this article? C RETOG 8(t/c) 20:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)


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

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)

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)

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)


 * 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. C RETOG 8(t/c) 18:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

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)


 * 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)
 * With consistency of weighted alternatives, you would need that if $$ A\succsim B \succsim C,$$ then there is a &lambda; such that $$B \approx (1-\lambda)A + \lambda C,$$ in order to have a utility function. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 12:05, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

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


 * 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.) C RETOG 8(t/c) 19:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Good point, the weakly preferred symbol is definitely more common. I'll think about changing it, especially if more editors approve it.  --Forich (talk) 00:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Preference revelation and revealed preference theory
I recently created the stub preference revelation to function as an overview of the work that's been done in the area of determining what your preferences are. In this entry it states, "The search for observables in microeconomics is taken even further by revealed preference theory". Samuelson's theory, while by far the most popular, is just one of several notable theories.

I also created actions speak louder than words and put your money where your mouth is to highlight the economic significance of those two expressions...but I ran into difficulties with editors who are not very familiar with the area of preference revelation. There's plenty of RS that discuss the economic significance of those two expressions...and they can go a long way to help people understand the topic.

Just wanted to bring these entries to the attention of anybody who is interested in the topic. --Xerographica (talk) 09:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Sounds interesting. I can give it a read and see what sticks in mind as relevant for the 'Preferences' entry.  Please feel free to be bold and edit its way into the article.--Forich (talk) 00:33, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Dr. Salmon's comment on this article
Dr. Salmon has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"The notation section is non-standard and doesn't match the rest of the sections. The preference operator is reversed. Here is is stated as < when normally it is the opposite or >. So it is read as "is preferred to". Much simpler."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Salmon has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


 * Reference : Ivanova-Stenzel, Radosveta & Salmon, Timothy C., 2010. "The High/Low Divide: Self- Selection by Values in Auction Choice," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 295, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:44, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

On the economist-consumer dialogue
I'm just not entirely sure of its opportunity. I get it that Wikipedia pages should not be of the utmost formality and so on but the dialogue seems more like a joke than a valid contribution to the topic of preferences in Economics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.26.118.69 (talk) 10:53, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Cleaned up formatting and visuals of article.
I document the changes I made to the article, as they are many to list in detail in the summary.


 * Fixed 19 instances of two spaces after period (i.e., "Sentence one.␣␣Sentence two." instead of "Sentence one.␣Sentence two.").
 * Cleaned up LaTeX math formulas:
 * Several formulas had the LaTeX negative space command following another symbol and right before text (such as " is"), resulting in a missing space between the displayed mathematical formula and the regular text; it displayed things such as "$$A\!$$ is" instead of "$$A$$ is"
 * Several formulas had punctuation within the formula, resulting in commas and periods displayed in math mode and not text mode, as in " so ..." instead of ", so..."; it displayed things such as "$$A,$$ so..." instead of "$$A$$, so..."

The use of negative spacing in formulas is particularly egregious as the engine takes care of spacing within the math mode by itself. Many binary relation operators had negative space before the second element (as in ", which is bad: operators have their own surrounding space defined already and there's (in general) no need to fiddle with that manually.

There are many other things that I ought to fix eventually but these mistakes in particular offended my aesthetic sensibilities and actual OCD so I had to fix them ASAP. --Paper wobbling sound (talk) 09:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Citations needed for "Meaning in decision sciences"
For paragraphs 1,2,3,4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.220.218 (talk) 12:54, 9 October 2020 (UTC)