Paternalism is an attempt to influence individuals’ decisions for their own benefit, even if there are no third parties involved. This seems to contradict normative individualism, which provides the general orientation to our modern democracies. Soft or libertarian paternalism accepts the...

This paper discusses several problems of direct popular decisions. In the first part, we consider problems related to the functioning of direct democracy. As a political system it only makes sense if there exists a continuous process and not if only occasional single questions are brought to a...

Die Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise kam unerwartet – auch für Wirtschaftswissenschaftler. Außer ihrer mangelnden Prognosefähigkeit wird ihnen seither vermehrt unterstellt, die Politik interessengeleitet zu beraten. Dass dies so ist, bestreitet der Autor nicht. Er sieht allerdings auch keine...