Title: The Historic Design of the Demand Law and Its Reconstruction
Abstract: The historical development of economic theories suggests that the most essential constituents of economics are the demand law, the utility function, the production function, and general equilibrium. These issues were argued professionally from the 1930s to the 1950s, mainly by mathematicians and physicists. The most fundamental of these seems to be the demand law. Many economists have been unable to find a consistently self-contained model either by any kind of individual utility formulation or the revealed preference axiom. This problem was solved by Hildenbrand (Market demand, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1994), taking into account macroscopic order. Even the consumer theory was too restrictive to encompass many important aspects of consumption activities. In this sense, the traditionally narrow interest may be dangerous because other decisive factors contributing to consumption activities may be missed. There are many aspects to consider, including the inter-connected factors between different income classes and household demands. Household demand includes some items that are so indispensable that demand for them is unaffected by price. Ignoring price levels, people would choose items to meet their desire for both luxury and sophistication. This chapter argues a particular scenario where different forces may apply to consumption activities in different income classes. By focusing on a self-organizing pattern of consumption, we analyze a new facet of interactive correlations among heterogeneous consumers. This may lead us to observe another hidden force driving consumption. Before discussing the detail, I consider the basic structure of traditional theories of static and random preference.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-07-05
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 2
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