Taking Absurd Theories Seriously 3 essays on Rational Choice Theory and Welfare Analysis

Ole Rogeberg

No 2004:12, HERO On line Working Paper Series from Oslo University, 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)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hpe and nep-pke
Date: 2009-06-14

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2004_012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HERO On line Working Paper Series from Oslo University, Health Economics Research Programme
Address: HERO / Institute of Health Management and Health Economics P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Gunn Kristin Tjoflot ().