Empirical Evidence Against Utility

Paper based on ideas below has been written finally. Paper is available at: [link]

The Conflict between Observed Behavior and Utility Theory. This has been discovered by many researchers in many different contexts. A paper putting together all the evidence would be useful. A possible paper title is:

The Empirical Evidence Against Utility Theory.[ A separate webpage has been created for this topic]

    1. Colin Camerer: Behavioral Game Theory - Evidence from Ultimatum Game (Dictator Game) and Prisoners Dilemma shows widespread violations of selfish maximizations

  1. Richard Thaler: Quasi Rational Economics: Mental Accounting models show how consumers allocate income into different types and therefore do not maximize as per economic theory models.

    1. Much Material in: Blackwell Handbook of Judgement and Decision Making

    2. Tastes are not exogenous, but are strongly influenced by socialization and advertising. Predictably Irrationalby D. Ariely has very useful material on this topic.

    3. Dan Ariely, G. Loewenstein, Drazen Prelec: "Coherent Arbitrariness: Stable Demand Curves without Stble Preferences." QJE Feb 2003. Preferences are formed in course of decision making -- that is choices determine preferences rather than other way around. Subsequent choices are made consistent with initial ones which creates an illusion of existence of preferences and stability -- "the results imply that demand curves estimated from market data need not reveal true consumer preferences."

    4. Frederic Lee "The Incoherent Emperor: A Heterodox Critique of Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory".View Download

    5. Zygmunt Bauman: Does Ethics Have a Chance in a World of Consumers?