In this paper, we consider the extension of the conception of the economic agent as a person who chooses particular actions in relation to his or her social identity. We do this in particular by analysing Akerlof and Kranton's recent models on 'economics and identity' (2000). Amartya Sen has...

The Capability Approach (CA) as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, has in part been a response to the problem of adaptive preferences. Their argument says that people might adapt to certain unfavorable circumstances and any self-evaluation in terms of satisfaction or happiness will in...

Homo Economicus has progressed from an atomistic and self-interested individual in standard economics to a socially embedded agent in modern economics who is endowed with a particular social identity or with specific preferences for the latter. While this vision makesthe economic agent more...

In this paper we argue, inspired by some psychological literature, that choices are the outcome of the interplay of different, potentially conflicting motivations. We propose an axiomatic approach with two motivations, which we assume to be single-peaked over a certain given dimension. We first...

The original Homo Economicus has progressed from an atomistic and self-interested individual to a socially embedded agent in modern economics. In particular, social interaction models suggest that the individual’s own utility of undertaking an action may be influenced by the number of peers...