FG VWL, insbesondere Mikroökonomik
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This paper argues that an evolutionary approach to policy-making, which emphasizes openness to change and political variety, is particularly compatible with the central tenets of classical liberalism. The chief reasons are that classical liberalism acknowledges the ubiquity of uncertainty, as well as heterogeneity in preferences and beliefs, and generally embraces gradual social and economic change that arises from accidental variation rather than deliberate, large-scale planning. In contrast, our arguments cast doubt on a different claim, namely that classical liberalism is particularly compatible with the evolutionary biological heritage of humans.
In explaining individual behavior in politics, economists should rely on the same motivational assumptions they use to explain behavior in the market: that is what Political Economy, understood as the application of economics to the study of political processes, is all about. In its standard variant, individuals who play the game of politics should also be considered rational and self-interested, unlike the benevolent despot of traditional welfare economics. History repeats itself with the rise of behavioral economics: Assuming cognitive biases to be present in the market, but not in politics, behavioral economists often call for government to intervene in a “benevolent” way. Recently, however, political economists have started to apply behavioral economics insights to the study of political processes, thereby re-establishing a unified methodology. This paper surveys the current state of the emerging field of “behavioral political economy” and considers the scope for further research.
In den letzten Jahren hat sich ein breiter Literatur
strang etabliert, der
neue Formen paternalistischer Interventionen vorschl
ägt, um individuelle Entscheidungen zu
verbessern, die nicht vollständig rational sind. Di
e Motivation hierfür liegt in zahlreichen
Verhaltensanomalien und anderen Abweichungen vom Mo
dell vollständiger Rationalität, die
von der empirischen Verhaltensökonomik identifizier
t wurden. Der neue Paternalismus
zeichnet sich nach seinen Befürwortern dadurch aus,
dass er ‘libertär’ ist, da die betroffenen
Individuen in die als effizient erachtete Richtung
geschubst, aber nicht gezwungen werden.
Die Möglichkeit zu abweichendem Verhalten soll grun
dsätzlich erhalten bleiben. In diesem
Papier wird der neue Paternalismus aus einer ordnung
sökonomischen Perspektive untersucht.
Es wird gezeigt, dass wichtige Varianten des neuen
Paternalismus mit den
ordnungsökonomischen Steuerungsidealen der Konsumen
tensouveränität und der
Bürgersouveränität kollidieren.
Pointing out the remarkable levels of hostile interaction in the air space over contested territory between states like China and Japan or Greece and Turkey we argue that air space incursions can be interpreted as a rational strategy with ultimately political aims. In our interpretation deliberate intrusions of military aircraft into sensitive air space serve as an indirect risk-generating mechanism, as they will trigger scrambles of the opposed government's air force which may escalate into a military crisis. We derive testable hypotheses from a game-theoretic model, which we developed in earlier work to explore the strategic logic behind this risk-generating mechanism more rigorously. In order to test whether the model's predictions regarding the effect of short-term economic developments on the states' interaction hold, we built a database of daily event observations from the Hellenic National Defence General Staff reports of the last 4 years, containing time series data of Turkish intrusions into Greek-claimed air space and the number of dogfights between Greek and Turkish fighter planes. What we find is that not only Greek engagements of Turkish intruders but also massed, provocative Turkish intrusions have become significantly less likely after the onset of the Greek economic crisis. These findings are well in line with the predictions of the model and thus supportive of our theory.