Toward Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics
Toward Choice-Theoretic Foundations for Behavioral Welfare Economics
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走向行为福利经济学的选择理论基础
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1001333
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发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Rangel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Bernheim;A. Rangel
近年来，人们对行为经济学的兴趣越来越大，这主要是因为越来越多的证据表明，消费者决策的标准模型对人类行为的描述是不充分的，是积极的。行为模型越来越多地进入政策评估，这不可避免地涉及福利分析。关于行为福利分析的适当标准和准则尚未达成共识。
本文总结了我们为发展行为福利经济学的统一框架所做的努力（详细讨论见Bernheim and Rangel 2007）--一个可以被视为标准福利经济学的自然延伸的框架。标准的福利分析是基于选择，而不是效用或偏好。在最简单的形式中，它指示计划者尊重个人为自己做出的选择。指导性规范原则是自由意志主义对选择自由的尊重的延伸，它认为最好给一个人他会为自己选择的东西，而不是别人会为他选择的东西。
我们表明，这是可能的，以标准的选择理论的方法来分析福利的情况下，个人作出不一致的选择，这是普遍的行为经济学。
Interest in behavioral economics has grown in recent years, stimulated largely by accumulating evidence that the standard model of consumer decision making provides an inadequate, positive description of human behavior. Behavioral models are increasingly finding their way into policy evaluation, which inevitably involves welfare analysis. No consensus concerning the appropriate standards and criteria for behavioral welfare analysis has emerged yet.
This paper summarizes our effort to develop a unified framework for behavioral welfare economics (for a detailed discussion see Bernheim and Rangel 2007) — one that can be viewed as a natural extension of standard welfare economics. Standard welfare analysis is based on choice, not on utility or preferences. In its simplest form, it instructs the planner to respect the choices an individual would make for himself. The guiding normative principle is an extension of the libertarian deference to freedom of choice, which takes the view that it is better to give a person the thing he would choose for himself rather than something that someone else would choose for him.
We show that it is possible to extend the standard choice-theoretic approach to welfare analysis to situations where individuals make inconsistent choices, which are prevalent in behavioral economics.