IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nwu/cmsems/1564.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tractable Falsifiability

Author

Listed:
  • Ronen Gradwohl
  • Eran Shmaya

Abstract

We propose to strengthen Popper's notion of falsifiability by adding the requirement that when an observation is inconsistent with a theory, there must be a "short proof" of this inconsistency. We model the concept of a short proof using tools from computational complexity, and provide some examples of economic theories that are falsifiable in the usual sense but not with this additional requirement. We consider several variants of the de nition of "short proof" and several assumptions about the difficulty of computation, and study their different implications on the falsifiability of theories. JEL Classification: B400

Suggested Citation

  • Ronen Gradwohl & Eran Shmaya, 2013. "Tractable Falsifiability," Discussion Papers 1564, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1564
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/research/math/papers/1564.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas DEMUYNCK, 2010. "The computational complexity of boundedly rational choice behavior," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces10.23, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    2. Chambers,Christopher P. & Echenique,Federico, 2016. "Revealed Preference Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107087804, January.
    3. Thomas Demuynck, 2014. "The computational complexity of rationalizing Pareto optimal choice behavior," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 529-549, March.
    4. Gil Kalai & Ariel Rubinstein & Ran Spiegler, 2002. "Rationalizing Choice Functions By Multiple Rationales," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2481-2488, November.
    5. Christopher P. Chambers & Federico Echenique & Eran Shmaya, 2014. "The Axiomatic Structure of Empirical Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2303-2319, August.
    6. Apesteguia, Jose & Ballester, Miguel A., 2010. "The Computational Complexity of Rationalizing Behavior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 356-363, May.
    7. Lance Fortnow & Rakesh V. Vohra, 2009. "The Complexity of Forecast Testing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(1), pages 93-105, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Raising the bar of falsifiability in Economics
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2013-06-28 19:20:00

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mandler, Michael, 2015. "Rational agents are the quickest," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 206-233.
    2. Thomas Demuynck, 2014. "The computational complexity of rationalizing Pareto optimal choice behavior," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 529-549, March.
    3. Domenico Cantone & Alfio Giarlotta & Stephen Watson, 2021. "Choice resolutions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(4), pages 713-753, May.
    4. Shaofang Qi, 2016. "A characterization of the n-agent Pareto dominance relation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(3), pages 695-706, March.
    5. García-Sanz, María D. & Alcantud, José Carlos R., 2015. "Sequential rationalization of multivalued choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 29-33.
    6. Mikhail Freer & César Martinelli, 2023. "An algebraic approach to revealed preference," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 75(3), pages 717-742, April.
    7. Salvador Barberà & Alejandro Neme, 2015. "Ordinal Relative Satisficing Behavior: Theory and Experiments," Working Papers 790, Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Chambers, Christopher P. & Echenique, Federico, 2020. "Spherical preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    9. Sam Cosaert, 2019. "What Types are There?," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 533-554, February.
    10. Domenico Cantone & Alfio Giarlotta & Stephen Watson, 2019. "Congruence relations on a choice space," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(2), pages 247-294, February.
    11. Demuynck, Thomas, 2011. "The computational complexity of rationalizing boundedly rational choice behavior," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 425-433.
    12. Alcantud, José Carlos R. & Cantone, Domenico & Giarlotta, Alfio & Watson, Stephen, 2023. "Rationalization of indecisive choice behavior by pluralist ballots," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Freeman, David J., 2017. "Preferred personal equilibrium and simple choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 165-172.
    14. Mikhail Freer & Cesar Martinelli, 2018. "A Functional Approach to Revealed Preference," Working Papers 1070, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    15. Mikhail Freer & Cesar Martinelli, 2018. "A Functional Approach to Revealed Preference," Working Papers 1070, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.
    16. Chambers, Christopher P. & Yenmez, M. Bumin, 2018. "A simple characterization of responsive choice," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 217-221.
    17. Mikhail Freer & Cesar Martinelli, 2018. "A Representation Theorem for General Revealed Preference," Working Papers ECARES 2018-28, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Gorno, Leandro, 2019. "Revealed preference and identification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 698-739.
    19. Jos'e Carlos R. Alcantud & Domenico Cantone & Alfio Giarlotta & Stephen Watson, 2022. "Rationalization of indecisive choice behavior by majoritarian ballots," Papers 2210.16885, arXiv.org.
    20. Fabrice Talla Nobibon & Laurens Cherchye & Yves Crama & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Frits C. R. Spieksma, 2016. "Revealed Preference Tests of Collectively Rational Consumption Behavior: Formulations and Algorithms," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 1197-1216, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1564. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Fran Walker (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmnwuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.