Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Behavioural Normative Economics: Foundations, Approaches And Trends, Malte Dold

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

This article summarises the theoretical foundations, main approaches and current trends in the field of behavioural normative economics. It identifies bounded rationality and bounded willpower as the two core concepts that have motivated the field. Since the concepts allow for individual preferences to be context-dependent and time-inconsistent, they pose an intricate problem for standard welfare analysis. The article discusses the ways in which two prominent approaches - the preference purification approach and the opportunity approach - have tackled the problem. It argues that shortcomings in each of these approaches motivate an agency-centric perspective. The article presents two concrete policy proposals …