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Behavioral Fair Social Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Fleurbaey

    (Princeton University)

  • Erik Schokkaert

    (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and CORE)

Abstract

Behavioral economics has shaken the view that individuals have well-defined, consistent and stable preferences. This raises a challenge for welfare economics, which takes as a key postulate that individual preferences should be respected. This paper scrutinizes the challenge and argues, in agreement with Bernheim (2009) and Bernheim and Rangel (2009) that behavioral economics is compatible with consistency of partial preferences. While Bernheim and Rangel have focused on how to incorporate insights from behavioral economics into traditional concepts of welfare economics (Pareto optimality, compensation tests), we explore how the approach can be extended to deal with distributive issues. This paper revisits some key results of the theory in a framework with partial preferences and shows how one can derive partial orderings of individual and social situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Fleurbaey & Erik Schokkaert, 2012. "Behavioral Fair Social Choice," Working Papers 2012-012, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2012-012
    Note: MIP
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fleurbaey,Marc & Maniquet,François, 2011. "A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521715348, January.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Peter P. Wakker & Rakesh Sarin, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 375-406.
    3. Dalton, Patricio & Ghosal, Sayantan, 2008. "Behavioural Decisions and Welfare," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 834, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    4. B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Behavioral Welfare Economics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 267-319, 04-05.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Robert Sugden, 2005. "Experienced Utility as a Standard of Policy Evaluation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 32(1), pages 161-181, September.
    6. Loewenstein, George & Ubel, Peter A., 2008. "Hedonic adaptation and the role of decision and experience utility in public policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1795-1810, August.
    7. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2008. "How are preferences revealed?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1787-1794, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Pivato, Marcus, 2013. "Social welfare with incomplete ordinal interpersonal comparisons," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 405-417.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    behavioral economics; preferences; welfare economics; psychology; social choice; fairness.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

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