A reader sends me the following comment, further to the several VC posts on behavioral economics (initially occasioned by Andy Ferguson’s Weekly Standard essay): One basic issue that this whole-“behavioral econ– good-or-bad?” discussion seems to have neglected the following simple point: welfare evaluation is much harder with “behavioral agents” than “rational agents.” With “rational” agents […]
Archive | Paternalism
Ignorance is Not Stupidity, Redux
Co-conspirator Ken Anderson draws my attention to Alan Wolfe’s statement that “Americans are most certainly misinformed. Dumb they are not.” This of course is exactly what I have been saying for years: political ignorance is widespread, but isn’t necessarily a sign of stupidity. To the contrary, being ignorant about politics is, for most voters, actually […]
How Markets Make Us More Rational
By Ilya Somin on January 6, 2010 8:36 pm in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
Advocates of “libertarian paternalism” cite experimental evidence showing that people often make irrational decisions, and argue that we need government regulation to guard against such problems. Economist Richard McKenzie challenges part of this rationale by citing experimental evidence showing that markets actually give people incentives to act more rationally than they would otherwise, thus undercutting […]
My Response to David Brooks, Taken from an Old Article on Lawyers, Elites, and the New Class
(Update: Thank you Instapundit) David Brooks has a piece up today in the Times attracting much comment. I am no populist, except perhaps by David Frum’s unexacting standards, but let’s just say I think that Brooks somewhere along the way lost the marvelous tuning that made him the true heir of Veblen. I think it […]
Paternalism and Slippery Slopes
By Ilya Somin on November 6, 2009 12:59 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
Advocates of the “new paternalism” (sometimes also called “libertarian paternalism”) argue that carefully calibrated government interventions can help consumers avoid mistakes caused by their own cognitive biases. In this interesting new article, economist Mario Rizzo and legal scholar Glen Whitman argue that new paternalist policies are vulnerable to slippery slopes that will extend them far […]
Interest Group Capture of the Proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency
A few weeks ago, I warned that one of the problems with the Administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency is that it could easily be captured by interest groups who would use its powers to exploit the general public for their own benefit: [Voter] political ignorance opens the door to interest group “capture” of the […]
How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment
We could have half as much crime, and half as many prisoners, a decade from now as we have today.
Gardasil Vaccinations for Boys?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 17, 2009 5:12 pm in Collective Action Problems, Libertarianism, Paternalism
If the boys don’t stand to benefit from the vaccine, then are we making boys into The Island? Well, that’s an awfully inflammatory way to start out, I grant you. Here’s another inflammatory way to start out … would forcing boys to be vaccinated against their will but without any medical benefit to them, with […]
Hayek on the Use of Superior Expert Knowledge as a Justification for Paternalism
In my most recent post on paternalism, I criticized claims that paternalistic policies can be justified on the grounds that government-appointed experts have greater knowledge than consumers and are less likely to be influenced to cognitive error. Among other points, I emphasized that government experts have no way of determining how much benefit consumers get […]
Pitfalls of Paternalism
By Ilya Somin on October 14, 2009 12:43 am in Libertarian Paternalism, Paternalism, Political Ignorance
In recent years, advocates of paternalistic policies, such as economist Richard Thaler, argue that government-appointed experts should limit the choices available to consumers in order to prevent them from making poor decisions because of ignorance or cognitive bias. After all, they claim, experts are likely to know better than ordinary consumers which products are too […]