A revealed preference theory of monotone choice and strategic complementarity

Hosted by Andrew McLennan

We develop revealed preference characterizations of (1) monotone choice (with respect to an observed parameter) in the context of individual decision making and (2) strategic complementarity in the context of simultaneous games. We first consider the case where the observer has access to panel data and then extend the analysis to the case where data sets are cross sectional and preferences heterogeneous. We apply our techniques to investigate the possibility of spousal influence in cigarette smoking behavior, using data on tobacco usage from the US Census Bureau.