Experimental tests of a relative frequency theory of consumer demand /
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[College Station, Tex.] :
Trimble,
1976.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Link to ProQuest copy Link to OAKTrust copy |
| Abstract: | The traditional theory of consumer demand characterizes consumers as possessing a fixed set of preferences which are then represented by a monotonically increasing utility function. Consumers are then characterized behaviorally as choosing amongst various commodity bundles so as to maximize this utility function subject to their budget constraint. This Dissertation proffers a theory of consumer demand based upon the behavioral premise that consumers are budget space explorers who, in the process of learning their preferences, distribute them over their budget space according to some distribution function. The distributional property of the theory is tested using consumption purchase operations of laboratory animals obtained in two-commodity experiments. Based upon the empirical results obtained here, the theory is extended to account for a changing distribution of preferences across experiment conditions. This change of the distribution of preferences is interpreted as preference variation and, the varying distribution of preferences is expressed in terms of economic phenomena observed in the experiment. |
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| Item Description: | "Major subject: Economics." Vita. |
| Physical Description: | viii, 89 leaves ; 28 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88). |