Chapter 3

PREFERENCES AND UTILITY

Copyright ©2005 by South-Western, a division of Thomson Learning. All rights reserved. 1

Axioms of Rational Choice

• Completeness
– if A and B are any two situations, an
individual can always specify exactly one of
these possibilities:
• A is preferred to B
• B is preferred to A
• A and B are equally attractive

Axioms of Rational Choice

• Transitivity
– if A is preferred to B, and B is preferred to
C, then A is preferred to C
– assumes that the individual’s choices are
internally consistent

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 Axioms of Rational Choice
• Continuity
– if A is preferred to B, then situations suitably
“close to” A must also be preferred to B
– used to analyze individuals’ responses to
relatively small changes in income and
prices

Utility
• Given these assumptions, it is possible to
show that people are able to rank in order
all possible situations from least desirable
to most
• Economists call this ranking utility
– if A is preferred to B, then the utility assigned
to A exceeds the utility assigned to B
U(A) > U(B)

Utility
• Utility rankings are ordinal in nature
– they record the relative desirability of
commodity bundles
• Because utility measures are not unique,
it makes no sense to consider how much
more utility is gained from A than from B
• It is also impossible to compare utilities
between people

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 Utility
• Utility is affected by the consumption of
physical commodities, psychological
attitudes, peer group pressures, personal
experiences, and the general cultural
environment
• Economists generally devote attention to
quantifiable options while holding
constant the other things that affect utility
– ceteris paribus assumption
7

Utility
• Assume that an individual must choose
among consumption goods x1, x2,…, xn
• The individual’s rankings can be shown
by a utility function of the form:
utility = U(x1, x2,…, xn; other things)
– this function is unique up to an order-
preserving transformation

Economic Goods
• In the utility function, the x’s are assumed
to be “goods”
– more is preferred to less
Quantity of y
Preferred to x*, y*

y*

?
Worse
than
x*, y* Quantity of x
x* 9

3
 Indifference Curves
• An indifference curve shows a set of
consumption bundles among which the
individual is indifferent
Quantity of y
Combinations (x1, y1) and (x2, y2)
provide the same level of utility

y1

y2 U1

Quantity of x
x1 x2 10

Indifference Curve Map

• Each point must have an indifference
curve through it

Quantity of y

Increasing utility

U3 U1 < U2 < U3
U2

U1
Quantity of x
11

Transitivity
• Can any two of an individual’s indifference
curves intersect?
The individual is indifferent between A and C.
Quantity of y The individual is indifferent between B and C.
Transitivity suggests that the individual
should be indifferent between A and B

But B is preferred to A
C
because B contains more
B x and y than A
U2

A U1

Quantity of x
12

4
Marginal Rate of Substitution
• The negative of the slope of the
indifference curve at any point is called
the marginal rate of substitution (MRS)
Quantity of y

dy
MRS  
dx U U1
y1

y2 U1

Quantity of x
x1 x2 13

Marginal Rate of Substitution

• MRS changes as x and y change
– reflects the individual’s willingness to trade y
for x
Quantity of y At (x1, y1), the indifference curve is steeper.
The person would be willing to give up more
y to gain additional units of x

At (x2, y2), the indifference curve

is flatter. The person would be
y1 willing to give up less y to gain
additional units of x
y2 U1

Quantity of x
x1 x2 14

Utility and the MRS

• Suppose an individual’s preferences for
hamburgers (y) and soft drinks (x) can
be represented by
utility  10  x  y
• Solving for y, we get
y = 100/x

• Solving for MRS = -dy/dx:

MRS = -dy/dx = 100/x2
15

5
 Utility and the MRS
MRS = -dy/dx = 100/x2
• Note that as x rises, MRS falls
– when x = 5, MRS = 4
– when x = 20, MRS = 0.25

16

Marginal Utility
• Suppose that an individual has a utility
function of the form
utility = U(x,y)
• The total differential of U is
U U
dU  dx  dy
x y

• Along any indifference curve, utility is

constant (dU = 0)
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Deriving the MRS

• Therefore, we get:
U
 x
dy
MRS  
dx Uconstant
U
y
• MRS is the ratio of the marginal utility of
x to the marginal utility of y

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6
 Diminishing Marginal Utility
and the MRS
• Intuitively, it seems that the assumption
of decreasing marginal utility is related to
the concept of a diminishing MRS
– diminishing MRS requires that the utility
function be quasi-concave (no linear
segments)
• this is independent of how utility is measured
– diminishing marginal utility depends on how
utility is measured
• Thus, these two concepts are different 19

Convexity
• A set of points is convex if any two points
can be joined by a straight line that is
contained completely within the set
Quantity of y
The assumption of a diminishing MRS is
equivalent to the assumption that all
combinations of x and y which are
preferred to x* and y* form a convex set

y*
U1

Quantity of x
x* 20

Convexity
• If the indifference curve is convex, then
the combination (x1 + x2)/2, (y1 + y2)/2 will
be preferred to either (x1,y1) or (x2,y2)
Quantity of y
This implies that “well-balanced” bundles are preferred
to bundles that are heavily weighted toward one
commodity

y1
(y1 + y2)/2

y2 U1

Quantity of x
x1 (x1 + x2)/2 x2 21

7
Monotonic transformation of
utility funcitons
• Suppose that the utility function is

utility  x  y
• We can simplify the algebra by taking the
logarithm of this function
U*(x,y) = ln[U(x,y)] = 0.5 ln x + 0.5 ln y

22

Monotonic transformation of
utility funcitons
• Thus,

U * 0.5
MRS  x  x 
y
U * 0.5 x
y y

23

Monotonic transformation
of utility funcitons
• Suppose that the utility function is
utility  x 2  y 2

• For this example, it is easier to use the

transformation
U*(x,y) = [U(x,y)]2 = x2 + y2

24

8
 Monotonic transformation
of utility funcitons
• Thus,

U *
2x x
MRS  x  
U * 2y y
y

25

Examples of Utility Functions

• Cobb-Douglas Utility
utility = U(x,y) = xy
where  and  are positive constants
– The relative sizes of  and  indicate the
relative importance of the goods

26

Examples of Utility Functions

• Perfect Substitutes
utility = U(x,y) = x + y
Quantity of y
The indifference curves will be linear.
The MRS will be constant along the
indifference curve.

U3

U2
U1
Quantity of x
27

9
Examples of Utility Functions
• Perfect Complements
utility = U(x,y) = min (x, y)
Quantity of y
The indifference curves will be
L-shaped. Only by choosing more
of the two goods together can utility
be increased.

U3

U2

U1
Quantity of x
28

Examples of Utility Functions

• CES Utility (Constant elasticity of
substitution)
utility = U(x,y) = x/ + y/
when   0 and
utility = U(x,y) = ln x + ln y
when  = 0
– Perfect substitutes   = 1
– Cobb-Douglas   = 0
– Perfect complements   = -
29

Examples of Utility Functions

• CES Utility (Constant elasticity of
substitution)
– The elasticity of substitution () is equal to
1/(1 - )
• Perfect substitutes   = 
• Fixed proportions   = 0

30

10
 Homothetic Preferences
• If the MRS depends only on the ratio of
the amounts of the two goods, not on
the quantities of the goods, the utility
function is homothetic
– Perfect substitutes  MRS is the same at
every point
– Perfect complements  MRS =  if y/x >
/, undefined if y/x = /, and MRS = 0 if
y/x < /
31

Homothetic Preferences
• For the general Cobb-Douglas function,
the MRS can be found as
U
x  1y   y
MRS  x   
U x  y 1  x
y

32

Nonhomothetic Preferences
• Some utility functions do not exhibit
homothetic preferences
utility = U(x,y) = x + ln y

U
1
MRS  x   y
U 1
y y

33

11
 The Many-Good Case
• Suppose utility is a function of n goods
given by
utility = U(x1, x2,…, xn)
• The total differential of U is

U U U
dU  dx1  dx 2  ...  dx n
x1 x 2 x n

34

The Many-Good Case

• We can find the MRS between any two
goods by setting dU = 0
U U
dU  0  dxi  dx j
xi x j

• Rearranging, we get
U
dx j x i
MRS( x i for x j )   
dx i U
x j 35

Multigood Indifference
Surfaces
• We will define an indifference surface
as being the set of points in n
dimensions that satisfy the equation
U(x1,x2,…xn) = k
where k is any preassigned constant

36

12
 Multigood Indifference
Surfaces
• If the utility function is quasi-concave,
the set of points for which U  k will be
convex
– all of the points on a line joining any two
points on the U = k indifference surface will
also have U  k

37

Important Points to Note:

• If individuals obey certain behavioral
postulates, they will be able to rank all
commodity bundles
– the ranking can be represented by a utility
function
– in making choices, individuals will act as if
they were maximizing this function
• Utility functions for two goods can be
illustrated by an indifference curve map
38

Important Points to Note:

• The negative of the slope of the
indifference curve measures the marginal
rate of substitution (MRS)
– the rate at which an individual would trade
an amount of one good (y) for one more unit
of another good (x)
• MRS decreases as x is substituted for y
– individuals prefer some balance in their
consumption choices
39

13
 Important Points to Note:
• A few simple functional forms can capture
important differences in individuals’
preferences for two (or more) goods
– Cobb-Douglas function
– linear function (perfect substitutes)
– fixed proportions function (perfect
complements)
– CES function
• includes the other three as special cases
40

Important Points to Note:

• It is a simple matter to generalize from
two-good examples to many goods
– studying peoples’ choices among many
goods can yield many insights
– the mathematics of many goods is not
especially intuitive, so we will rely on two-
good cases to build intuition

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