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3 results

  • 12 - Behavioral Welfare Economics

  • from Part VI - Further Topics in Behavioral Economics
  • Sanjit Dhami, University of Leicester
  • Book:
    Principles of Behavioral Economics
    Published online:
    13 February 2025
    Print publication:
    16 January 2025, pp 611-661

  • Summary

    In neoclassical economics, choices reflect considered judgment, so one can use revealed preference arguments for welfare judgments. The evidence from behavioral economics calls this view into question. This chapter considers the proposed modifications to neoclassical welfare economics when people might not be the best judges of their actions. The generic form of paternalism in behavioral economics is soft paternalism that nudges the choices of boundedly rational individuals in a beneficial direction, but the choices of rational individuals are minimally affected. We consider several forms of soft paternalism: libertarian paternalism, asymmetric paternalism, and light paternalism. Our main focus is on libertarian paternalism, and we consider the evidence from several forms of nudges as well as the importance of distinguishing between partial and general equilibrium effects of any policy intervention. We consider the inevitability of the choice architect and the concept of informed consent. We critically evaluate the criticisms of this approach, for example, those by the contractarian approach. We consider applications to sin goods and to the foundations of behavioral public economics.

Escaping Paternalism
  • Rationality, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy
  • Mario J. Rizzo, Glen Whitman
  • Published online:
    02 December 2019
    Print publication:
    05 December 2019
  • The burgeoning field of behavioral economics has produced a new set of justifications for paternalism. This book challenges behavioral paternalism on multiple levels, from the abstract and conceptual to the pragmatic and applied. Behavioral paternalism relies on a needlessly restrictive definition of rational behavior. It neglects nonstandard preferences, experimentation, and self-discovery. It relies on behavioral research that is often incomplete and unreliable. It demands a level of knowledge from policymakers that they cannot reasonably obtain. It assumes a political process largely immune to the effects of ignorance, irrationality, and the influence of special interests and moralists. Overall, behavioral paternalism underestimates the capacity of people to solve their own problems, while overestimating the ability of experts and policymakers to design beneficial interventions. The authors argue instead for a more inclusive theory of rationality in economic policymaking.

  • Chapter 4 - The right to autonomy and the justification of hard paternalism

  • Edited by Christian Coons, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, Michael Weber, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book:
    Paternalism
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    14 February 2013, pp 74-92

  • Summary

    This chapter critically examines some different views about the content, strength, and justification of a right to autonomy. It explains some background assumptions about the right to autonomy, the concept of paternalism, and the soft/hard distinction. There are two basic approaches to spelling out the content of the right: choice-based and preference-based. Joel Feinberg's view that the right protects only self-regarding choices that are voluntary enough is one example of the former. The claim that the right is absolute vis-à-vis moralistic reasons mean that when moralistic interference infringes the right to autonomy, it is always wrong. If the right to autonomy is cashed out in terms of a hybrid current preferences account (CP) test, then an example of soft moralism might be one orthodox Jew's forcing a second to wait to eat till his craving for a delicious but non-kosher food passes.