Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/62914 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 622
Publisher: 
Queen Mary University of London, Department of Economics, London
Abstract: 
Many decision models in marketing science and psychology assume that a consumer chooses by proceeding sequentially through a checklist of desirable properties. These models are contrasted to the utility maximization model of rationality in economics. We show on the contrary that the two approaches are nearly equivalent. Moreover, the length of the shortest checklist as a proportion of the number of an agent's indifference classes shrinks to 0 (at an exponential rate) as the number of indifference classes increases. Checklists therefore provide a rapid procedural basis for utility maximization.
Subjects: 
Bounded rationality
Procedural rationality
Utility maximization
Choice behavior
JEL: 
D01
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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