arXiv: Validity Without Ground Truth: What Stated-Preference Economics Offers the Evaluation of Language Models Many of the questions now put to large language models have no correct answer to score against: what a policy is worth, which option a user should choose, how to weigh competing values. Stated-preference economics has faced this problem for decades. It judges survey responses without knowing the true value, through a framework of validity and related concepts: content, construct, and criterion validity, reliability, incentive compatibility, and consequentiality. We argue that this framework is a