Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-9klzr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T13:01:45.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Study of Consumer Behavior Using Laboratory Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Philippe Février*
Affiliation:
Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique (CREST), 28 rue des Saints Pères, 75007 Paris, France
Michael Visser*
Affiliation:
Centre de Recherche en Economie et Statistique (CREST), 28 rue des Saints Pères, 75007 Paris, France

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an experiment in which subjects had to buy real products in 5 different budget/price situations. Subjects were randomly drawn from the population of a medium-sized French city, and some of their socio-economic characteristics were recorded. We check the consistency of product choices with the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preferences (GARP), and find that 29% of the subjects are GARP-inconsistent. This inconsistency rate is slightly lower than the ones found in comparable studies. A possible explanation for our lower rate of GARP violations might be that the subjects in our study were confronted with less budget/price situations. In looking for determinants of the GARP violations, we find that gender, the size of the household, the degree of switching between different products, and the times spent on performing experimental tasks have significant impacts on the probability of GARP-inconsistency.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Afriat, S. (1967). “The Construction of a Utility Function from Expenditure Data.” International Economic Review. 8, 6777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Afriat, S. (1973). “On a System of Inequalities on Demand Analysis: An Extension of the Classical Method.” International Economic Review. 14, 460472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battalio, R.C., Dwyer, G.P., and Kagel, J.H. (1987). “Tests of Competing Theories of Consumer Choice and the Representative Consumer Hypothesis.” Economic Journal. 97, 842856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battalio, R.C., Kagel, J.H., Winkler, R.C., Fisher, E.B., Basmann, R.L., and Krasner, L. (1973). “A Test of Consumer Demand Theory Using Observations of Individual Consumer Preferences.” Western Economic Journal. 11, 411428.Google Scholar
Becker, G.S. (1962). “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory.” Journal of Political Economy. 70, 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blundell, R., Pashardes, P., and Weber, G. (1993). “What Do We Learn About Consumer Demand Patterns from Micro Data.” American Economic Review. 83, 570597.Google Scholar
Bronars, S.G. (1987). “The Power of Nonparametric Tests of Preference Maximization.” Econometrica. 55, 693698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chant, J.F. (1963). “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory: A Comment.” Journal of Political Economy. 71, 505510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, J.C. (1997). “On Testing the Utility Hypothesis.” Economic Journal. 107, 10541078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Février, P. and Visser, M. (2000). “A Study of Consumer Behavior Using Laboratory.” CREST Discussion Paper, No. 2000-12.Google Scholar
Kagel, J.H., Battalio, R.C., and Green, L. (1995). Economic Choice Theory: An Experimental Analysis of Animal Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, C., Issanchou, S., and Combris, P. (2000). “Expected Versus Experienced Quality: Trade-Off with Price.” Food Quality and Preference. 11, 289297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, C., Rousseau, F., and Issanchou, S. (1998). “Expectation, Liking and Purchase Behaviour Under Economical Constraint.” Food Quality and Preference. 10, 3139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sippel, R. (1996). “A Note on the Power of Revealed Preference Tests with Afriat Inefficiency.” Bonn University Discussion Paper, No. A-528.Google Scholar
Sippel, R. (1997). “An Experiment on the Pure Theory of Consumer's Behaviour.” Economic Journal. 107, 14311444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varian, H. (1982). “The Nonparametric Approach to Demand Analysis.” Econometrica. 50, 945972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varian, H. (1983). “Non-Parametric Tests of Consumer Behaviour.” Review of Economic Studies. 50, 99110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varian, H. (1988). “Revealed Preference with a Subset of Goods.” Journal of Economic Theory. 46, 179185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar