Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T04:57:06.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enhancing welfare without a theory of welfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2019

DANIEL M. HAUSMAN Open the ORCID record for DANIEL M. HAUSMAN [Opens in a new window]
DANIEL M. HAUSMAN*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
*
*Correspondence to: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 600 N. Park Street, Madison, WI 53706, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

By identifying well-being with preference satisfaction, mainstream normative economists were able to leave the determination of which specific things make people better or worse off to the individuals themselves. The findings of behavioral economics undermine the possibility of deferring in this way to individual preference. One response to this challenge to welfare economics is to distinguish the true preferences of individuals from their manifest preferences and to take true preferences to guide policy. In The Community of Advantage, Robert Sugden criticizes this strategy and proposes that economists appraise policies, institutions and outcomes by the opportunities they provide rather than by their contributions to welfare. This paper criticizes Sugden's view and argues for a modest solution that makes cautious use of preferences as indicators of well-being.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 342 - 357
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrow, K. (1995), ‘A Note on Freedom and Flexibility,’ in Basu, K., Pattanaik, P., and Suzumura, K. (eds), Choice, Welfare and Development: A Festschrift in Honour of Amartya Sen, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, I. (1999), A Measure of Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowding, K. (1992), ‘Choice: Its Increase and its Value,’ British Journal of Political Science, 22: 301–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. (2012), Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. and Welch, B. (2010), ‘To Nudge or Not to Nudge,’ Journal of Political Philosophy, 18: 123–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, P. and Sugden, R. (1982), ‘Evaluating Choice,’ International Review of Law and Economics, 2: 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattanaik, P. and Xu, Y. (1990), ‘On Raking Opportunity Sets in Terms of Freedom of Choice,’ Recherches Economiques de Louvain, 56: 383–390.Google Scholar
Pattanaik, P. and Xu, Y. (1998), ‘On Preference and Freedom,’ Theory and Decision, 44: 173–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Puppe, C. (1996), ‘An Axiomatic Approach to “Preference for Freedom of Choice”,’ Journal of Economic Theory, 68: 174–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (1971), A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A. (1990), ‘Welfare, Freedom, and Social Choice: A Reply,’ Recherches Economiques de Louvain, 56: 451–485.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (2002a), ‘Freedom and the Evaluation of Opportunity,’ in Rationality and Freedom, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 658–712.Google Scholar
Sen, A. (2002b), ‘Opportunities and Freedom,’ in Rationality and Freedom, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 583–622.Google Scholar
Sugden, R. (2018), The Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist's Defence of the Market, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. (2008), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar