Let be the set allowed by the budget constraint. A demand correspondence is understood to choose only feasible bundles: . Define the direct revealed preference relation by
The indirect revealed preference relation is its reflexive transitive closure. Thus precisely when there is a finite chain whose successive comparisons satisfy . Chains of length zero are included. This makes a preorder on all of , including alternatives that are never chosen. The associated strict preference is
If a convention defines indirect revelation using only positive-length chains, one must add the diagonal before the intersection assertion in part (c) can hold: every complete weak preference relation contains the diagonal.
Revealed preference 2026-10-14
Revealed preference infers rankings from choices: a chosen bundle is directly revealed at least as desirable as any bundle affordable in the same budget. Indirect comparisons use chains of such observations.