Indirect utility function
In economics, a consumer's indirect utility function
gives the consumer's maximal attainable utility when faced with a vector
of goods prices and an amount of income
. It reflects both the consumer's preferences and market conditions.
This function is called indirect because consumers usually think about their preferences in terms of what they consume rather than prices. A consumer's indirect utility can be computed from his or her utility function
defined over vectors
of quantities of consumable goods, by first computing the most preferred affordable bundle, represented by the vector
by solving the utility maximization problem, and second, computing the utility
the consumer derives from that bundle. The resulting indirect utility function is