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Back to Buchanan? Explorations of welfare and subjectivism in behavioral economics

Malte Dold

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2018, vol. 25, issue 2, 160-178

Abstract: In light of behavioral findings regarding inconsistent individual decision-making, economists have begun to re-conceptualize the notion of welfare. One prominent account is the preference purification approach (PP), which attempts to reconstruct preferences from choice data based on a normative understanding of neoclassical rationality. Using Buchanan’s notion of creative choice, this paper criticizes PP’s epistemic, ontological, and psychological assumptions. It identifies PP as a static position that assumes the satisfaction of given ‘true preferences’ as the normative standard for welfare. However, following Buchanan, choice should be understood dynamically as a process whereby preferences constantly regenerate. Accordingly, the meaning of welfare emerges from an ongoing quest for individual self-constitution. If this holds true, then rationality axioms cannot serve as a priori normative standards. Instead, creative imagination and learning processes must remain central to any understanding of welfare in economics.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2017.1421770

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