revealed preference

Meaning

Noun

• Consumer preference as inferred from purchasing habits according to a theory invented by American economist Paul A. Samuelson.
• Samuelson's theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits.

Related

Broader meaning words

• preference

Origin

• Idiom coined by Paul A. Samuelson in the title of his 1948 paper expounding a theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits. Samuelson first published a version of his theory ten years earlier, in a 1938 paper, but did not use the term revealed preference in the 1938 paper.