Taking Absurd Theories Seriously 3 essays on Rational Choice Theory and Welfare Analysis
Ole Rogeberg
No 2004:12, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme
Abstract:
The effects of public policies on the welfare of different groups in society are in many cases unclear. Economists often study such effects through welfare analyses based on a mathematical model of an individual decision maker. I show for the case of Rational Addiction theory that we have both theoretical and empirical reasons to think that the model fails to reflect the welfare of real people. I argue that the acceptance and standing of the theory is due to a failure to apply relevant criteria when evaluating such welfare analyses, that this failure makes the profession take absurd theories seriously, and that such welfare analyses should therefore be treated with scepticism and great care.
Keywords: Welfare Analysis; Rational Choice; Rational; Addiction; Gary Becker; Jon Elster (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2009-06-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2004/HERO2004_12.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2004_012
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme HERO / Department of Health Management and Health Economics P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kristi Brinkmann Lenander ().