Boosts: A Remedy for Rizzo and Whitman’s Panglossian Fatalism

Till Grüne-Yanoff

Review of Behavioral Economics, 2021, vol. 8, issue 3-4, 285-303

Abstract: I identify two problematic conclusions that remain somewhat implicit in Rizzo and Whitman’s book: the Panglossian conclusion that whatever the individual thinks or wants is best for her, and the Fatalistic conclusion that there are no justified paternalistic interventions. Against the first conclusion, I critically discuss the authors’ arguments against consistency-based rationality. Against the second, I show that there is a whole class of paternalistic interventions, Boosts, that do not require Rizzo and Whitman’s demanding epistemic preconditions in order to be successful.

Keywords: Behavioral policy; nudge; boost; Libertarianism; paternalism; rationality; consistency; knowledge deficit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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