The duality between the anti-exchange closure operators and the path independent choice operators on a finite set (Q5932330)

A choice operator \(c\) on a set \(S\) is a map associating a subset \(c(A)\) of \(A\) to every \(A\subseteq S\). \(c\) is path-independent if \(c(A \cup B)=c(c(A) \cup c(B))\). A closure operator \(k\) is a map associating \(k(A)\) to \(A\) with \(A\subseteq k(A)\) such that \(k(k(A))= k(A)\) and \(A\subseteq B\) implies \(k(A) \subseteq k(B)\). \(k\) is said to be anti-exchange if for \(x,y\in S\), \(x,y\notin k(A)\) and \(y\in k(A+x)\) implies \(x\notin k(A+y)\) where \(+\) denotes the disjoint union. It has been previously shown that there exists a natural correspondence between anti-exchange closure operators and path-independent choice operators. In this paper, it is shown that this correspondence induces a duality between the semilattices of these two operators and that, from this duality, we straightforwardly obtain results in the theory of path-independent choice operators (as used, for instance, in revealed preference theory) from known results in the theory of anti-exchange closure operators.