Fuzzy choice functions. A revealed preference approach (Q883716)

In standard microeconomic theory, the agent (consumer) has a preference relation (complete preorder) or a utility function over a set of the attainable vectors of quantities of goods (the budget set). Given appropriate assumptions, the preference relation or utility function has a maximum and the maximizing vector is the agent's choice or demand or, if not unique, an element in the agent's choice or demand set. In the revealed preference theory, the analysis is, in some sense, reversed. Since what is observed (or supposed to be observed) is the agent's choice, one tries to recover the underlying preference relation or utility function. This is the rationalizability problem. One needs specific properties on choice functions to be able to rationalize these functions by complete preorders or other types of binary relations. The agent's preference is revealed by his choice. This book, based on the author's PhD thesis, is an excellent extension of the revealed preference theory to the fuzzy case where preference and choice are fuzzy. Fuzziness is one way to model vagueness (a slight flaw of the book is that there is no general discussion of vagueness and of the meaning of fuzzy choice). In his developments, the author explores new topics such as similarity and indicators of rationality and applies his results to problems of multi-criteria decision making. The so-called axioms of the revealed preference theory are adequately fuzzified. One can find fuzzy versions of famous results due to Arrow, Sen, and Richter. Although this book is basically a mathematic text, it is highly recommended to choice theorists and to specialists in fuzzy mathematics. Choice theorists will discover the interest of using fuzziness to deal with a more realist universe and mathematicians working on fuzziness will see how fuzzy mathematics can be used in a highly theoretical part of social science.