Who's Afraid of Incoherence? Behavioural Welfare Economics and the Sovereignty of the Neoclassical Consumer

Guilhem Lecouteux

No 2021-01, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to critically assess the argument advanced in behavioural welfare economics that preference inconsistency and violations of rational choice theory are the result of errors, and offer a direct justification for paternalistic regulations. I argue that (i) this position relies on a psychologically and philosophically problematic account of agency, (ii) the normative argument in favour of coherence is considerably weaker than usually considered, and (iii) BWE fails to justify why agents ought to be coherent by neoclassical standards. I conclude by discussing how BWE could still justify paternalistic regulations by endorsing a more institutionalist perspective.

Keywords: behavioural welfare economics; preference inconsistency; consumer sovereignty; paternalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B40 D01 D60 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gre:wpaper:2021-01

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