Opportunity and Preference Learning

Christian Schubert

Papers on Economics and Evolution from Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography

Abstract: Robert Sugden has recently elaborated upon the case for a normative standard of freedom as "opportunity" that is supposed to cope with the problem of how to realign normative economics - with its traditional rational choice orientation - with behavioral economics. His standard, though, presupposes that people respond to uncertainty about their own future preferences by dismissing any kind of self-commitment. We argue that the approach lacks psychological substance: Sugden's normative benchmark - the "responsible person" - is a purely artificial construct that can hardly serve as a convincing role model in a contractarian setting. An alternative concept is introduced, and some policy implications are briefly discussed.

Keywords: Opportunity Criterion; Preference Change; Reconciliation Problem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D51 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2012-04-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Journal Article: OPPORTUNITY AND PREFERENCE LEARNING (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:esi:evopap:2012-08

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