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Behavioral Welfare Economics and Redistribution

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  • Marc Fleurbaey
  • Erik Schokkaert

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. We argue, in agreement with Bernheim (2009) and Bernheim and Rangel (2009) that behavioral economics is compatible with consistency of partial preferences, and explore how the Bernheim-Rangel approach can be extended to deal with distributive issues. We revisit some key results of the theory in a framework with partial preferences and show how one can derive partial orderings of individual and social situations.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Fleurbaey & Erik Schokkaert, 2013. "Behavioral Welfare Economics and Redistribution," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 180-205, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:5:y:2013:i:3:p:180-205
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.5.3.180
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    18. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Luchini & Christophe Muller & Erik Schokkaert, 2013. "Equivalent Income And Fair Evaluation Of Health Care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 711-729, June.
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Koen Decancq & Marc Fleurbaey & Erik Schokkaert, 2017. "Wellbeing Inequality and Preference Heterogeneity," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 210-238, April.
    2. Alpaslan Akay & Olivier Bargain & H. Xavier Jara, 2020. "‘Fair’ welfare comparisons with heterogeneous tastes: subjective versus revealed preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(1), pages 51-84, June.
    3. Dale O. Stahl, 2017. "Dynamic programming and behavioral rules," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 5(2), pages 165-174, October.
    4. Koen Decancq & Javier Olivera & Erik Schokkaert, 2018. "Program evaluation and ethnic differences: the Pension 65 program in Peru," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven 630047, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    5. Bade, Sophie & Segal-Halevi, Erel, 2023. "Fairness for multi-self agents," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 321-336.
    6. John A. Weymark, 2017. "Conundrums for nonconsequentialists," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 269-294, February.
    7. DECANCQ, Koen & FLEURBAEY, Marc & SCHOKKAERT, Erik, 2014. "Inequality, income, and well-being," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014018, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Georgios Gerasimou, 2016. "Partially dominant choice," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 61(1), pages 127-145, January.
    9. Richard Cookson & Owen Cotton-Barrett & Matthew Adler & Miqdad Asaria & Toby Ord, 2016. "Years of good life based on income and health: Re-engineering cost-benefit analysis to examine policy impacts on wellbeing and distributive justice," Working Papers 132cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    10. Rafael Treibich, 2019. "Welfare egalitarianism with other-regarding preferences," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(1), pages 1-28, January.
    11. Andrea Gallice, 2019. "Bankruptcy problems with reference-dependent preferences," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 48(1), pages 311-336, March.
    12. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier B. & Jara, H. Xavier, 2017. "Back to Bentham, Should We? Large-Scale Comparison of Experienced versus Decision Utility," GLO Discussion Paper Series 52, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    13. Antoine Beretti & Charles Figuières & Gilles Grolleau, 2019. "How to turn crowding-out into crowding-in? An innovative instrument and some law-related examples," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 417-438, December.
    14. Galanis, Giorgos & Veneziani, Roberto, 2022. "Behavioural utilitarianism and distributive justice," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    15. Antoine Beretti & Charles Figuières & Gilles Grolleau, 2014. "An Instrument that Could Turn Crowding-out into Crowding-in," Working Papers 2014.04, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    16. Ami, Dominique & Aprahamian, Frédéric & Chanel, Olivier & Luchini, Stéphane, 2018. "When do social cues and scientific information affect stated preferences? Insights from an experiment on air pollution," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 33-46.
    17. Decancq, Koen & Nys, Annemie, 2021. "Non-parametric well-being comparisons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    18. Sophie Bade & Erel Segal-Halevi, 2018. "Fairness for Multi-Self Agents," Papers 1811.06684, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2022.
    19. Matthew D. Adler & Koen Decancq, 2021. "Well-Being Measurement," Working Papers 2105, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

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