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From Homo Economicus to Homo Psychologicus: the Paretian Foundations of Behavioural Paternalism

Author

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  • Guilhem Lecouteux

    (University of Bristol [Bristol])

Abstract

Behavioural paternalism aims at designing public policies helping boundedly rational individuals to satisfy their own preferences. It is assumed that (i) individuals have true preferences which would determine their choices if they were rational, (ii) the satisfaction of those preferences constitutes the normative criterion, and (iii) it is possible to elicit those preferences from the social planner standpoint. I argue that behavioural paternalism implicitly endorses Pareto's model of the Homo economicus, and highlight the methodological difficulties of those three hypotheses. My main argument is that behavioural paternalists cannot define unambiguously what would be the preferences of an ideally rational agent.

Suggested Citation

  • Guilhem Lecouteux, 2016. "From Homo Economicus to Homo Psychologicus: the Paretian Foundations of Behavioural Paternalism," Post-Print halshs-01426738, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01426738
    DOI: 10.4000/oeconomia.2324
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Christophe Salvat, 2017. "Living by Default," Post-Print halshs-01590753, HAL.
    2. Christophe Salvat, 2021. "Stillborn Yet Not Without Influence: What Mill’S Political Economy Owes To His Project Of Ethology," Post-Print halshs-03425764, HAL.
    3. Blaž Remic, 2021. "Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint," Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 141(1-2), pages 85-107.
    4. Salvat, Christophe & Assistant, JHET, 2020. "Still-Born Yet Not Without Influence What Mill’S Political Economy Owes To His Project Of Ethology," OSF Preprints tcj2f, Center for Open Science.
    5. Alicja Małgorzata Graczyk, 2021. "Households Behaviour towards Sustainable Energy Management in Poland—The Homo Energeticus Concept as a New Behaviour Pattern in Sustainable Economics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-30, May.
    6. Guilhem Lecouteux, 2020. "Welfare Economics in Large Worlds: Welfare and Public Policies in an Uncertain Environment," GREDEG Working Papers 2020-08, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    7. Christophe Salvat, 2020. "Still-Born Yet Not Without Influence," Post-Print halshs-03083697, HAL.

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