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Freedom and adaptive preferences / Carl Christian von Weizsäcker

By: Resource type: Ressourcentyp: Buch (Online)Book (Online)Language: English Series: The Graz Schumpeter lecturesPublisher: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2025Description: 1 Online-RessourceISBN:
  • 9781040104231
  • 9781040104163
  • 9781032726410
Subject(s): Additional physical formats: 9781032726298. | 9781032726601. | Erscheint auch als: Freedom and adaptive preferences. Druck-Ausgabe Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2025DDC classification:
  • 330.15/56 23/eng/20240609
LOC classification:
  • HB99.3
Online resources: Summary: "Traditional welfare economics works with the assumption of the fully rational economic agent (homo economicus) whose preferences are fixed: that is, they are not influenced by their economic environment. To the contrary, this book presents a theory of welfare economics that maintains the principles of normative individualism while allowing for adaptive or changeable preferences. Why do economists talk of preferences? In this book, Carl Christian von Weizsäcker shows that the concept is intimately related to freedom of action. The concept of preferences is the mode by which normative economics introduces the idea of freedom or liberty into its theory of human interaction. Moreover, economic research of recent decades has provided a large amount of experimental and other empirical findings - e.g. the work on bounded rationality - which contradicts the assumption of fixed preferences. This book argues that this large body of findings is consistent with the hypothesis of adaptive preferences. This, together with the proposition that adaptive preferences allow a generalization of traditional welfare economics, has implications for policy applications of behavioral economics based on "normative individualism". Normative individualism is an approach which intrinsically connects with the value of liberty or freedom. It is argued that normative individualism is indispensable for a society of free citizens: thus, providing the foundations of civil liberty. This book will be of great interest to readers of welfare economics, behavioural economics and economic theory"--PPN: PPN: 191620919XPackage identifier: Produktsigel: ZDB-94-OAB
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