Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Public Policy, Values, and Consciousness

Economists should pay more attention to value formation in economic analysis. First, preferences are not stable in any operationally meaningful sense. Any estimated micro behavior that does not take account of the consequences of the behavior on underlying preferences is incapable of serving as a guide to future action. Second, the economist's model of human psychology is inaccurate and misleading. Third, most analyses of complex social behavior start from models incapable of producing empirical results adequate for useful structural analyses. The paper suggests avenues for making progress on each of these issues, beginning with a different approach to utility maximization.

[1]  Thomas C. Schelling,et al.  Choice and Consequence , 1984 .

[2]  George A. Akerlof,et al.  The Economic Consequences of Cognitive Dissonance , 1982 .

[3]  R. Thaler,et al.  An Economic Theory of Self-Control , 1977, Journal of Political Economy.

[4]  Kenneth E. Thorpe,et al.  The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care. , 1984 .

[5]  Eric A. Hanushek,et al.  The Economics of Schooling: Production and Efficiency in Public Schools , 1986 .

[6]  D. Massey.  American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass , 1993 .

[7]  Clifford Winston,et al.  Economic Deregulation: Days of Reckoning for Microeconomists , 1993 .

[8]  J. Elster.  Social Norms and Economic Theory , 1989, Handbook of Monetary Policy.

[9]  K. Schwartz.  The Painful Prescription: Rationing Hospital Care , 1984 .

[10]  Thomas E. Mann,et al.  Values and Public Policy , 1995 .

[11]  A. Sen,et al.  Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory , 1977 .

[12]  T. Schelling.  Models of Segregation , 1969 .

[13]  Aaron Wildavsky,et al.  Choosing Preferences by Constructing Institutions: A Cultural Theory of Preference Formation , 1987, American Political Science Review.

[14]  Thomas Brock.  Unpaid Work Experience for Welfare Recipients: Findings and Lessons from MDRC Research. MDRC Working Papers. , 1993 .

[15]  Howard Margolis,et al.  Selfishness, altruism, and rationality , 1982 .

[16]  Suzanne Scotchmer,et al.  On the evolution of optimizing behavior , 1991 .

[17]  M. Rabin.  Published by: American , 2022 .

[18]  James F. Wilson.  The Moral Sense , 1994 .

[19]  P. Kramer.  Listening to Prozac - A psychiatrist explores antidepressant drugs and the remaking of the self , 1994 .

[20]  J. Elster,et al.  The Cement Of Society , 1989 .

[21]  L. Blume,et al.  Evolution and market behavior , 1992 .

[22]  R. Moffitt.  Participation in the AFDC Program and the Stigma of Welfare Receipt: Estimation of a Choice-Theoretic Model , 1981 .

[23]  I. Sawhill.  Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: The Economist vs. Madmen in Authority , 1995 .

[24]  J. Slemrod.  Why people pay taxes : tax compliance and enforcement , 1992 .

[25]  Gary S. Becker,et al.  Habits, Addictions, and Traditions , 1992 .

[26]  R. Frank.  Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions , 1990 .

[27]  R. Herrnstein,et al.  Melioration: A Theory of Distributed Choice , 1991 .

[28]  F. Mannering,et al.  Brand Loyalty and the Decline of American Automobile Firms , 1991 .

[29]  Daniel T. Jones,et al.  The machine that changed the world : based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5-million dollar 5-year study on the future of the automobile , 1990 .