Economic change, while promoting 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,...

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...

According to the advocates of a "Generalized Darwinism" (GD), the three Darwinian principles of variation, selection and retention can and should be used as a meta-theoretical framework for the explanation of evolutionary processes in the socio¬cultural domain. Despite their biological origins,...

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....

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,...

Environmental policies are increasingly informed by behavioral economics insights. 'Green nudges' in particular have been suggested as a promising new tool to encourage consumers to act in an environmentally responsible way, such as choosing renewable energy sources or saving energy. While there...

Nudges, i.e., low-cost interventions that steer people's behavior without compromising their freedom of choice, are the key contribution of 'Libertarian Paternalism' (LP) to public policy. They typically work through either harnessing or responding to people's cognitive biases and heuristics -...