Revealed Mistakes and Revealed Preferences

Because some are not able to assess all the possible options for making a decision of an action, people often defy one of the most fundamental and traditional concepts in economics by going for an option that they would not have chosen had they been able to push through with thorough evaluation. Because of this, it would be useful to first analyze the common mistakes made until they become uncommon and until we are able to integrate what we have learned from these mistakes into creating models, policy prescriptions, and evaluations. Although certain fears may arise from such a measure on both the positive and normative side through mistakes becoming a free parameter and because of how the revealed-preference approach cannot be used, this chapter suggests other measures to deal with such concerns.