According to the principle of Normative Individualism, the evaluation of economic states and processes should be guided exclusively by the wishes of the individuals who are seen as the only bearer of values. Despite its intuitive appeal and its almost universal acceptance in normative economics...

Robert Sugden has recently elaborated upon the case for a normative standard of freedom as "opportunity" that is supposed to cope with the problem of how to realign normative economics - with its traditional rational choice orientation - with behavioral economics. His standard, though,...

While research on subjective well-being abounds, comparatively little thought has been given to its practical policy implications. Two approaches to derive policy advice have emerged in the literature: One is organized in terms of the idea to maximize a hedonic social welfare function, the other...

According to the advocates of a "Generalized Darwinism" (GD), the three core Darwinian principles of variation, selection and retention (or inheritance) can be used as a general framework for the development of theories explaining evolutionary processes in the socioƯeconomic domain. Even though...

Economic change, while creating innovation and growth, at the same time generates "gales of creative destruction". It is still largely unclear what this concept implies for the task of assessing welfare (and, correspondingly, the need for and scope of policy-making) in a novelty-generating,...

Behavioral (e.g. consumption) patterns of boundedly rational agents can lead these agents into learning dynamics that appear to be "wasteful" in terms of well-being or welfare. Within settings displaying preference endogeneity, it is however still unclear how to conceptualize well-being. This...

Schumpeter's and Hayek's view of market coordination as being not about efficiency, but about endogenous change and never-ending discovery has been increasingly recognized even by the mainstream of economics. Underlying this view is the notion of creative learning agents who bring about novelty....

Normative reasoning in welfare economics and social contract theory usually presumes invariable, context-independent individual preferences. Following recent work particularly in behavioral economics this assumption is difficult to defend. This paper therefore explores what can be said about...

In constitutional political economy, the citizens' constitutional interests determine the social contract that is binding for the post-constitutional market game. However, following traditional preference subjectivism, it is left open what the constitutional interest are. Using the example of...

This paper delivers a step toward a naturalistic foundation of the social contract. While mainstream social contract theory is based on an original position model that is defined in an aprioristic way, we endogenize its key elements, i.e., develop them out of the individuals’ moral common...