Theoretical Economics, Volume 20, Number 2 (May 2025)

Theoretical Economics 20 (2025), 511–542


To infinity and beyond: a general framework for scaling economic theories

Yannai A. Gonczarowski, Scott Duke Kominers, Ran I. Shorrer

Abstract


Many economic models incorporate finiteness assumptions that, while introduced for simplicity, play a real role in the analysis. We provide a principled framework for scaling results from such models by removing these finiteness assumptions. Our sufficient conditions are on the theorem statement only, and not on its proof. This results in short proofs, and even allows us to use the same argument to scale similar theorems that were proven using distinctly different tools. We demonstrate the versatility of our approach via an array of examples from revealed-preference theory.

Keywords: Revealed preferences, infinite models

JEL classification: C02,D00

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