Ordinal Space, Utility, and Consumer Demand: A Clarifying Note

Dominique, C-Rene (2016): Ordinal Space, Utility, and Consumer Demand: A Clarifying Note.

Abstract

Concepts such as marginal utility, expected-utility, etc. are severely criticized in some quarters where economists are accused of performing mathematical operations in ordinal spaces. Haplessly, economists’ counterclaims are far from being substantive. This note shows that there exists an order-isomorphism relating preference ordering to a substantive set of real numbers and thus obviates the need for a utility index.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Ordinal Spaces, Binary Relation, Poset, Total Pre-ordering, Isomorphisms.
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design; D - Microeconomics > D5 - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

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