The geometry of consumer preference aggregation

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Sandomirskiy, Fedor, Ushchev, Philip
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Sandomirskiy, Fedor
Ushchev, Philip
author_facet Sandomirskiy, Fedor
Ushchev, Philip
contents We revisit a classical question of how individual consumer preferences and incomes shape aggregate behavior. We develop a method that applies to populations with homothetic preferences and reduces the hard problem of aggregation to simply computing a weighted average in the space of logarithmic expenditure functions. We apply the method to identify aggregation-invariant preference domains, characterize aggregate preferences from common domains like linear or Leontief, and describe indecomposable preferences that do not correspond to the aggregate behavior of any non-trivial population. Applications include robust welfare analysis, information design, discrete choice models, pseudo-market mechanisms, and preference identification.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_06108
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The geometry of consumer preference aggregation
Sandomirskiy, Fedor
Ushchev, Philip
Theoretical Economics
We revisit a classical question of how individual consumer preferences and incomes shape aggregate behavior. We develop a method that applies to populations with homothetic preferences and reduces the hard problem of aggregation to simply computing a weighted average in the space of logarithmic expenditure functions. We apply the method to identify aggregation-invariant preference domains, characterize aggregate preferences from common domains like linear or Leontief, and describe indecomposable preferences that do not correspond to the aggregate behavior of any non-trivial population. Applications include robust welfare analysis, information design, discrete choice models, pseudo-market mechanisms, and preference identification.
title The geometry of consumer preference aggregation
topic Theoretical Economics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.06108