The Behaviour of the Consumer as Illustrated by the Ordinal Approach

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Briefly discuss the behaviour of the consumer as illustrated by the Ordinal approach Every market transaction requires a buyer and a seller. The behaviour of buyers determines the demand forces in a market, while the behaviour of suppliers determines the supply forces. Different economists attempt to develop testable hypotheses about the economic choices that a buyer will make. Such choices include what goods to buy, how many hours to work and how much income to spend, among others. However, consumers have varying needs; hence it is not possible for economists to create a consumer’s eye view of the world. Nonetheless, economists have proceeded to construct theoretical models with which they can predict the behaviour of the consumer. The ordinal approach is one of the models that are used to predict consumer behaviour. The ordinal approach derives its name from ordinal numbers, which express degree of position in a series, such as first, second, and third. Accordingly, we require only that consumers be able to rank their preferences for substitute commodity bundles rather than attach quantifiable units of satisfaction to them. This way, utility cannot be measured in quantifiable terms. Rather, the consumer can compares the utility accruing from different commodities and rank them in accordance with the satisfaction each commodity (or combination of commodities) gives him. Prof Hicks Allen and followers among modern economists argue that utility cannot be quantified; hence its measurement is unrealistic (Dwivedi, 2009). Being subjective and a mental concept, it is impossible to measure utility, and quantifying it is absurd. The ordinal approach contains that the theory of consumer behaviour can be explained or analyzed even without measuring utility as the cardinal approach does. For example, the consumer may prefer a banana to an orange and rank the commodities

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