Investigation of meat consumption preferences using non-parametric method of revealed preferences

The first and most basic premise of presenting and developing economic theories in the field of consumer behavior is the rational behavior of the consumer and the accuracy of the studies and surveys conducted in the field of demand and consumption depends on the validity of the assumption of rational consumer behavior. In this study, we have tried to test the presence of structural breaks in the Iranian consumer preferences for meat portfolio. For this purpose, the non-parametric approach of testing the weak, strong and generalized axioms of revealed preferences, Afriat efficiency index, Kruskal-Wallis statistical test and De Peretti graphical method have been used to study the rational behavior and stability of consumers' preferences of meat portfolio in Iran. According to the obtained results, the behavior of the consumers of the meat portfolio in the period 1993-2017 was rational and can be interpreted by a concave, continuous, uniform and unsaturated utility function. Therefore, this data can be used to estimate the demand function in the mentioned time period or smaller sub-periods which the precondition of that is the existence of a neoclassical utility function.