Behavioral Welfare Economics and Consumer Sovereignty

Guilhem Lecouteux

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Abstract: The aim of this chapter is to critically assess the argument advanced in behavioural welfare economics that preference inconsistency and violations of rational choice theory are the result of errors, and offer a direct justification for paternalistic regulations. I argue that (i) this position relies on a psychologically and philosophically problematic account of agency, (ii) the normative argument in favour of coherence is considerably weaker than usually considered, and (iii) BWE fails to justify why agents ought to be coherent by neoclassical standards. I conclude by discussing how BWE could still justify paternalistic regulations by endorsing a more institutionalist perspective

Keywords: behavioural welfare economics; preference inconsistency; consumer sovereignty; paternalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-10-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03418219
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Published in Conrad Heilman; Julian Reiss. The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, Routledge, pp.56-66, 2021, ⟨10.4324/9781315739793-5⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03418219

DOI: 10.4324/9781315739793-5

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