Abstract
Experimental studies using humans in planned environments have made it possible to examine consumer behavior using observations of known levels of accuracy. This research on consumer demand theory is based on the analysis of consumer expenditure data from the planned environment of a token economy conducted in Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney, Australia between January 13, 1973 and April 2, 1973. The token economy experiment was designed as a behavior modification treatment therapy for the speech order of stuttering. The consumer purchase data for the adult male stutterers in the therapy were tested to see whether the stutterers' consumption behavior could be characterized by members of Slutsky-Hicks demand systems. Due to the logical equivalence of Slutsky-Hicks demand theory and the Strong Axiom of Theory of Revealed Preference, the test condition was: if q₁ R q₂, then ~(q₂ R q₁) where R stands for the Revealed Preference relation. The consumption of goods available in the token economy were divided into two groups, the grouping being based on the Leontief-Hicks composite good theorem. After accounting for observation errors (with the internal consistency tests built into the data collection process), it was found that twenty three percent of the stutterers contradicted the Slutsky-Hicks demand hypothesis in their daily consumption, the contradictions being caused by changes in the production conditions or the time horizon of consumption. All stutterers satisfied the consistency condition when their mean purchase in a price period were considered which are in agreement with the results of a recent studies of consumer demand behavior in token economies with human or in laboratories with rats..
Çinar, Emine Mine Kantar (1976). Tests of the strong axiom of revealed preference theory and variations in consumer equilibrium demand in a token economy. Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -502988.