Arquitectura de decisiones y paternalismo libertario: hacia una microeconomía empíricamente fundamentada

Abitbol, Pablo (2012): Arquitectura de decisiones y paternalismo libertario: hacia una microeconomía empíricamente fundamentada. Published in: Economía & Región , Vol. 6, No. 2 (December 2012): pp. 228-232.

Abstract

One of the most important debates in the philosophy of economic science refers to the disjunctive between instrumentalism and realism. Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, represents a milestone in the development, and possibly the consolidation, of a new realist paradigm - of an empirically-based microeconomics, as the one Herbert Simon demanded - which might displace the instrumentalist paradigm that has predominated over more than a century as the theoretical foundation of political economy. Thaler and Sunstein manage to, firstly, condense a complex characterization of economic agents, based on the empirical findings that cognitive psychology and behavioral economics have been achieving over the last thirty years; and, secondly, they manage to articulate such positive characterization of economic agents to a normative proposal on public policy and institucional design.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• English Title: Decision architecture and libertarian paternalism: towards an empirically based microeconomics
• Language: Spanish
• Keywords: Nudge, instrumentalism, realism, cognitive psychology, behavioral economics
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

References

Friedman, Milton (1967), “La metodología de la economía positiva”, en Ensayos de economía positiva. Madrid: Gredos.

Simon, Herbert A. (1998) An Empirically-Based Microeconomics (Raffaele Mattioli Lectures). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thaler, Richard H. y Cass R. Sunstein (2005) Un pequeño empujón (Nudge). El impulso que necesitas para tomar mejores decisiones en salud, dinero y felicidad. México, D.F.: Taurus.