Welfare Economics bei endogenen Präferenzen: Thünen–Vorlesung 2001

C. Christian Von Weizsäcker

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 2002, vol. 3, issue 4, 425-446

Abstract: The lecture develops a theory which provides a basis for welfare economics after we give up the assumption of fixed preferences. It formulates a mathematical theorem by which the following can be developed. The concept of “progress” can be maintained even in a world of endogenous preferences, i.e. in a world in which the measuring rod changes with the object to be measured. It is then shown that under the assumption of “adaptive preferences” and certain other assumptions a complete ordering of the commodity space is possible according to the concept of progress. In other words: despite the endogenously changing normative measuring rod for states of the economy it is still possible to maintain the concept of progress. It is then shown how such welfare economics can be used in “evolutionary” environments. Generalisations of the theory are discussed as well as the empirical validity of adaptive preferences in view of the new empirical and experimental findings concerning human behaviour. Finally it is shown that all modern social philosophy implicitly rests on an assumption which is basically identical to the assumption of adaptive preferences.

Date: 2002
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