Escaping Paternalism: Rationality, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy
by Mario J Rizzo (Author), Glen Whitman (Author)

About the Author
Mario J. Rizzo is a professor of Economics, Director of the Foundations of the Market Economy Program, and Co-Director of the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University. He is the co-author of Austrian Economics Re-Examined: The Economics of Time and Ignorance (2014). He has published in such journals as Journal of Legal Studies, the Columbia Law Review and the UCLA Law Review.

Glen Whitman is a professor of Economics at California State University, Northridge. He is the co-editor of Economics of the Undead: Zombies, Vampires, and the Dismal Science (2014). He has published in such journals as the UCLA Law Review, the Journal of Legal Studies, and the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.

About this Book
The burgeoning field of behavioral economics has produced a new set of justifications for paternalism. This book challenges behavioral paternalism on multiple levels, from the abstract and conceptual to the pragmatic and applied. Behavioral paternalism relies on a needlessly restrictive definition of rational behavior. It neglects nonstandard preferences, experimentation, and self-discovery. It relies on behavioral research that is often incomplete and unreliable. It demands a level of knowledge from policymakers that they cannot reasonably obtain. It assumes a political process largely immune to the effects of ignorance, irrationality, and the influence of special interests and moralists. Overall, behavioral paternalism underestimates the capacity of people to solve their own problems, while overestimating the ability of experts and policymakers to design beneficial interventions. The authors argue instead for a more inclusive theory of rationality in economic policymaking.

Brief Contents
1 Introduction: Puppets and Puppet Masters
2 What Is Rationality?
3 Rationality for Puppets
    Appendix to Chapter 3:Revealed Preference
4 Preference Biases
5 The Rationality of Beliefs
    Appendix to Chapter 5:System 1 and System 2
6 Deficient Foundations for Behavioral Policymaking
7 Knowledge Problems in Paternalist Policymaking
    Appendix to Chapter 7:Retirement-Savings Defaults
8 The Political Economy of Paternalist Policymaking
9 Slippery Slopes in Paternalist Policymaking
10 Common Threads, Escape Routes, and Paths Forward
References
Index

Series: Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society
Pages: 506
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1108760007
ISBN-13: 978-1108760003