Kevin Leportier

Published : 

• • Paternalism for rational agents (2024), Journal of Economic Methodology, p.1-13. [tandfonline.com] 

In the context of strategic interactions, individuals sometimes find themselves better off when they have fewer options. This mechanism is known under the name of ‘strategic commitment’, as it is usually the individuals themselves who ‘commit’ to following a certain course of action by restricting their options; but that is not necessary. I explain how a paternalistic intervention may be conceived where it is a third party who paternalistically restricts rational individuals’ choices to improve their welfare. This kind of intervention, which I call ‘strategic paternalism’, contradicts the narrative according to which welfare economics is incompatible with paternalism because it assumes individual rationality, which would make paternalism irrelevant. To prove this point, I show why and in what sense this ‘strategic paternalism’ deserves to be called that way. 

• • L'économie normative sans les préférences ? Critère d'opportunité, anti-paternalisme et engagement (2022), in Badéi, Campagnolo, Grivaux (ed.), Le positif et le normatif en philosophie économique, p.271-290, Éditions Matériologiques. [cairn.info] 

The results of behavioural economics have cast doubt on the idea that individuals' choices express stable, consistent and context-independent preferences. In a recent book, Robert Sugden (2018) proposed to use an opportunity criterion to evaluate economic situations—according to which it is better to have more opportunity than less—instead of the traditional preference satisfaction criterion. Applying this criterion requires no information about individuals' preferences. However, the paper shows how it conflicts with anti-paternalism (which Sugden endorses) when individuals have preferences for commitment—preferences for having less opportunity. The chapter also shows that a conflict between anti-paternalism and preferences for commitment exists even if we do not adopt the opportunity criterion. One thus cannot be a coherent anti-paternalist without attributing individuals a (minimal) preference for freedom.

• Work in progress: 

  • Altruism and the Simple Argument for Markets [ssrn.com]

Many private goods fall into the category of `contested commodities' (Radin 2001): blood, drugs, surrogacy, sex services, etc. A general argument for extending the sphere of the market to these goods appeals to the value of freedom: new markets give people more freedom to choose, whatever may be their preferences. By re-examining the debate between Titmuss and Arrow about the market for blood transfusions, I show that this simple argument is not conclusive because it fails to consider the motivations of `impure altruists' (Andreoni 1990) whose preferences are denied by the creation of a market for blood. This objection offers a reinterpretation in economic terms of a disputed claim made by philosophers that the meaning of some goods (such as blood) changes when it becomes possible to exchange them on a market. 

• • Preserving Freedom in Times of Urgency [ssrn.com]

The paper shows how the provision of public goods through a public intervention forcing individuals to contribute can be said, paradoxically, to preserve their freedom—when they face what I call a `situation of urgency'. By this I mean a situation in which cooperation between individuals is needed to address a catastrophic situation but is costly for individuals, such as the start of a serious epidemic, an imminent invasion by a foreign power or rapidly evolving climate warming. It reconciles a libertarian framework centred on rights, inspired by Nozick, with public coercive interventions meant to avoid severe collective losses. It concludes that, contrary to what is often claimed, measures such as the imposition of a lockdown, conscription or strict quotas on carbon-intensive consumption, are not necessarily liberticide. 

• • The Case Against Self-Constraint [ssrn.com]

Behavioural economics models and findings on self-control problems have provided the basis for the justification of paternalistic policies, which consider targeted individuals as incapable of solving these problems themselves. This new paternalistic program has triggered a significant backlash. In this paper, I show how some of the arguments developed by anti-paternalist economists and philosophers also apply to the use, by the individuals themselves, of hard commitment devices (HCDs), which impose material penalties on individuals who fail to deliver on their commitment. HCDs have a disturbing character as such, that I propose to explain by connecting it to John Stuart Mill's famous argument against slavery contracts. This argument, once adapted, shows how a case can be made for the regulation of markets for HCDs from the perspective of freedom.  

• Review: 

  • Christian List, Why Free Will Is Real, Oeconomia (2020), 10-3, p.629-634. [open access]