(joint with Charles Gauthier and Raghav Malhotra)

Abstract: Classically, testing whether decision makers belong to specific preference classes involves two main approaches. The first, known as the functional approach, assumes access to an entire demand function. The second, the revealed preference approach, constructs inequalities to test finite demand data.

This paper bridges these methods by using the functional approach to test finite data through preference learnability results. We develop a computationally efficient al- gorithm that generates tests for choice data based on functional characterizations of preference families. We provide these restrictions for various applications, in- cluding homothetic and weakly separable preferences, where the latter’s revealed preference characterization is provably NP-Hard.

We also address choice under uncertainty, offering tests for betweenness preferences. Lastly, we perform a sim- ulation exercise demonstrating that our tests are effective in finite samples and accurately reject demands not belonging to a specified class.