Economics without Preferences

Michael Mandler

in Cambridge Books from Cambridge University Press

Abstract: Economics without Preferences lays out a new microeconomics – a theory of choice behavior, markets, and welfare – for agents who lack the preferences and marginal judgments that economics normally relies on. Agents without preferences defy the rules of the traditional model of rational choice but they can still systematically pursue their interests. The theory that results resolves several puzzles in economics. Status quo bias and other anomalies of behavioral economics shield agents from harm; they are expressions rather than violations of rationality. Parts of economic orthodoxy go out the window. Agents will fail to make the ï¬ ne-grained trade-offs ingrained in conventional economics, leading market prices to be volatile and cost-beneï¬ t analysis to break down. This book provides policy alternatives to ï¬ ll this void. Governments can spur innovation, the main beneï¬ t markets can deliver, while sheltering agents from the upheavals that accompany economic change.

Date: 2025
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