IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usg/econwp/201217.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sanfter Paternalismus, meritorische Güter, und der normative Individualismus

Author

Listed:
  • Kirchgässner, Gebhard

Abstract

Paternalism is an attempt to influence the decisions of individuals for their own benefit even if there are no third parties involved. This seems to be a contradiction to normative individualism which provides the general orientation of our modern democracies. Soft or libertarian paternalism accepts the necessity of paternalism due to the existence of behavioural anomalies, but intends to apply only such measures that do not restrict the decision leeway of individuals. Nevertheless, the same objections which can be raised against its strong version can also be raised against soft paternalism. On the other hand, as soon as we accept that human beings are able to reflect not only on their actions but also on the preferences guiding them, there exists no longer a necessary contradiction between paternalism and normative individualism. As far as we know today, the possibilities to successfully apply soft paternalistic measures are rather limited. On the other hand, while some of its criticisms are justified, others are largely overshooting the mark and seem at least partly to be ideologically motivated.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirchgässner, Gebhard, 2012. "Sanfter Paternalismus, meritorische Güter, und der normative Individualismus," Economics Working Paper Series 1217, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2012:17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-1217.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abadie, Alberto & Gay, Sebastien, 2006. "The impact of presumed consent legislation on cadaveric organ donation: A cross-country study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 599-620, July.
    2. Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi, 2004. "Save More Tomorrow (TM): Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 164-187, February.
    3. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2006. "Optimal sin taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1825-1849, November.
    4. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Schubert, Christian & Cordes, Christian, 2013. "Role models that make you unhappy: light paternalism, social learning, and welfare," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 131-159, June.
    6. Robert Sugden, 2008. "Why incoherent preferences do not justify paternalism," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 226-248, September.
    7. Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein & Jessica Wisdom, 2009. "Strategies for Promoting Healthier Food Choices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 159-164, May.
    8. Jessica Wisdom & Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein, 2010. "Promoting Healthy Choices: Information versus Convenience," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 164-178, April.
    9. Geoffrey Brennan & Alan Hamlin, 2004. "An Introduction to the Status Quo," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 127-132, June.
    10. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    11. Thaler, Richard H & Shefrin, H M, 1981. "An Economic Theory of Self-Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(2), pages 392-406, April.
    12. Christine Jolls & Cass R. Sunstein, 2006. "Debiasing through Law," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(1), pages 199-242, January.
    13. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2012. "Nudges and norms: On the political economy of soft paternalism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 266-277.
    14. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003. "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 93-118, Summer.
    15. Cass R. Sunstein & Richard H. Thaler, 2003. "Libertarian paternalism is not an oxymoron," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, vol. 48(Jun).
    16. Peter Kooreman & Henriëtte Prast, 2010. "What Does Behavioral Economics Mean for Policy? Challenges to Savings and Health Policies in the Netherlands," De Economist, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 101-122, June.
    17. Samuelson, William & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1988. "Status Quo Bias in Decision Making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 7-59, March.
    18. Glaeser, Edward L., 2006. "Paternalism and Psychology," Working Paper Series rwp06-006, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    19. Kliemt, Hartmut, 1986. "The veil of insignificance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 333-344.
    20. Ted O'Donoghue & Matthew Rabin, 2003. "Studying Optimal Paternalism, Illustrated by a Model of Sin Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 186-191, May.
    21. Jan Schnellenbach, 2011. "Wohlwollendes Anschubsen: Was ist mit liberalem Paternalismus zu erreichen und was sind seine Nebenwirkungen?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(4), pages 445-459, November.
    22. Kirchgässner, Gebhard, 2010. "On minimal morals," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 330-339, September.
    23. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, 2023. "Libertarian paternalism," Chapters, in: Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch (ed.), Research Handbook on Nudges and Society, chapter 1, pages 10-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    24. Pommerehne, Werner, 1975. "Budgetäre Umverteilung in der Demokratie: Ein empirischer Test alternativer Hypothesen," Discussion Papers, Series I 64, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    25. Schelling, Thomas C, 1978. "Egonomics, or the Art of Self-Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 290-294, May.
    26. Bryan Caplan, 2007. "Introduction to The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies," Introductory Chapters, in: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, Princeton University Press.
    27. B. Douglas Bernheim & Andrey Fradkin & Igor Popov, 2015. "The Welfare Economics of Default Options in 401(k) Plans," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(9), pages 2798-2837, September.
    28. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(4), pages 675-700, August.
    29. Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 1994. "Constitutional Economics and Its Relevance for the Evolution of Rules," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 321-339.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2017. "Soft paternalism, merit goods, and normative individualism," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 125-152, February.
    2. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    3. Martin Binder & Leonhard K. Lades, 2015. "Autonomy-Enhancing Paternalism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(1), pages 3-27, February.
    4. Jan Schnellenbach, 2016. "A Constitutional Economics Perspective on Soft Paternalism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(1), pages 135-156, February.
    5. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2017. "Richard H. Thaler: Integrating Economics with Psychology," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2017-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    6. Beshears, John & Kosowsky, Harry, 2020. "Nudging: Progress to date and future directions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 161(S), pages 3-19.
    7. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    8. Roberto Fumagalli, 2016. "Decision sciences and the new case for paternalism: three welfare-related justificatory challenges," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 459-480, August.
    9. Wolfgang Kerber, 2014. "Soft Paternalismus und Verbraucherpolitik," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201449, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    10. Jan Schnellenbach, 2019. "Evolving hierarchical preferences and behavioral economic policies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 31-52, January.
    11. Schnellenbach, Jan, 2012. "Nudges and norms: On the political economy of soft paternalism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 266-277.
    12. Schubert, Christian, 2017. "Green nudges: Do they work? Are they ethical?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 329-342.
    13. Martin Binder, 2019. "Soft paternalism and subjective well-being: how happiness research could help the paternalist improve individuals’ well-being," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 539-561, April.
    14. Pasche, Markus, 2014. "Soft Paternalism and Nudging - Critique of the Behavioral Foundations," MPRA Paper 61140, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    16. Dold, Malte, 2015. "Condorcet's jury theorem as a rational justification of soft paternalistic consumer policies," Discussion Paper Series 2015-07, University of Freiburg, Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy.
    17. Wang, Wenjie & Ida, Takanori & Shimada, Hideki, 2020. "Default effect versus active decision: Evidence from a field experiment in Los Alamos," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    18. Binder, Martin & Lades, Leonhard K, 2014. "Autonomy-enhancing paternalism," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-02, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2014. "Behavioral public choice: A survey," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 14/03, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    20. Martin Binder, 2014. "Should evolutionary economists embrace libertarian paternalism?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 515-539, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Libertarian Paternalism; Soft Paternalism; Merit Goods; Normative Individualism; Democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usg:econwp:2012:17. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vwasgch.html .

    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.