Abstract
Let us start with the unrealistic but simple case of a consumer in a two-goods world or, if you prefer, a person whose freedom of choice is limited to allocating a budget between buying two goods. We choose an arbitrary starting point with quantities of the two goods, and by trial and error we find other combinations that the consumer deems equivalent. We can thus construct an approximation of one indifference curve. The process is repeated a number of times with new starting points. We attach numbers to the curves in inverse order of preference. We now have an incomplete ordinal preference function. It does not sound too complicated, but try to actually do it!
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References
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Hagen, O. (1994). The Short Step from Ordinal to Cardinal Utility. In: Allais, M., Hagen, O. (eds) Cardinalism. Theory and Decision Library, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0888-1_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0888-1_6
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