revealed preference

Meanings

1. A consumer preference as inferred from purchasing habits according to a theory invented by American economist Paul A. Samuelson.
2. Samuelson's theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits.

Etymology

Coined by American economist Paul Samuelson in the title of his 1948 paper expounding a theory for inferring consumer preference from purchasing habits. Samuelson first published a version of his theory ten years earlier, in a 1938 paper, but did not use the term revealed preference in the 1938 paper.