ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: Politics : a Promised Land for Economic Models of Fairness
Author: Valfort Marie-Anne
Economic theory is based on the postulate of homo oeconomicus. However, empirical evidence shows that human behaviour is not only driven by selfishness, and that a tension exists between selfish concerns and various non selfish concerns. Among them, fairness concerns are presented as the most powerful non selfish drivers of human behaviours by experimental economists. Yet, it is not clear what the implications for economic theory are. More precisely, should economic theory incorporate the tension between selfish and fairness concerns to improve its prediction power? To tackle this issue, we first present the categories of fairness concerns highlighted by experimental economics. We then identify the field(s) of economic research where disregarding such categories would clearly undermine the prediction power of economic theory. Finally, based on the existing literature, we select the economic model(s) of fairness that economic theory could adequately use within fields of research where fairness concerns will have proved to influence the aggregate outcome. We more specifically show that the economic analysis of voting behaviours, the field where a general modelling of fairness turns out to be the most necessary, would greatly benefit from the application of both the ‘difference-aversion models’ (Fehr/Schmidt) and the ‘social welfare models’ (Charness/Rabin).
Registred web users only can download this paper - Go back
Please note that files available for download have not been checked for viruses. These files have been submitted by authors of the conference to this web site. Conference organisers can't accept any responsibility for damages caused to users by downloading such files.