Libertarian paternalism: taking Econs seriously

D. Wade Hands ()

International Review of Economics, No 0, 23 pages

Abstract: Abstract There is an extensive critical literature analyzing the libertarian paternalism (LP) of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. This paper is critical as well, but does so from a different perspective than most of the existing research. Thaler and Sunstein characterize LP by at least two key features: (1) a sharp distinction between Econs (those whose behavior will be unchanged by LP policies) and Humans (who will, at least potentially, change their behavior as a result of LP policies), and (2) defining Econs explicitly as homo economicus: “the textbook picture of human beings offered by economists” (Thaler and Sunstein in Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Penguin, London, p. 7, 2009). This paper will take their definition of Econs seriously and examine the implications for LP-based policies. The bottom line is that if we take Econs seriously, LP nudges end up being not only extremely weak policy tools, but they also fail to accommodate some of the most important insights of behavioral economics.

Keywords: Libertarian paternalism; Nudging; Rational choice theory; Behavioral economics; Behavioral welfare economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 D90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12232-020-00349-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Journal Article: Libertarian paternalism: taking Econs seriously (2020)
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:spr:inrvec:v::y::i::d:10.1007_s12232-020-00349-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cy/journal/12232/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s12232-020-00349-7

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics is currently edited by Luigino Bruni

More articles in International Review of Economics from Springer, Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().