IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/mgqh7_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Liberalism, rationality, and Pareto optimality

Author

Listed:
  • Heap, Shaun Hargreaves
  • Ismail, Mehmet

Abstract

Rational players in game theory are neoliberal in the sense that they can choose any available action so as to maximize their payoffs. It is well known that this can result in Pareto inferior outcomes (e.g. the Prisoner's Dilemma). Classical liberalism, in contrast, argues that people should be constrained by a no-harm principle (NHP) when they act. We show, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, that rational players constrained by the NHP will produce Pareto efficient outcomes in n-person non-cooperative games. We also show that both rationality and the NHP are required for this result.

Suggested Citation

  • Heap, Shaun Hargreaves & Ismail, Mehmet, 2021. "Liberalism, rationality, and Pareto optimality," SocArXiv mgqh7_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:mgqh7_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/mgqh7_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/6028809923238302ae9d6659/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/mgqh7_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:mgqh7_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.