TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bernheim,B. Douglas
AU  - Rangel,Antonio
TI  - Behavioral Public Economics: Welfare and Policy Analysis with Non-Standard Decision-Makers
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11518
PY  - 2005
Y2  - August 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11518
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11518.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
B. Douglas Bernheim
Department of Economics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: 650/725-8732
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: bernheim@stanford.edu

Antonio Rangel
Department of Economics
California Institute of Technology
HSS MC 228-77
Pasadena, CA 91125
Tel: (626) 395-4091
E-Mail: rangel@hss.caltech.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2005-08-01
AB  - This paper has two goals. First, we discuss several emerging approaches to applied welfare analysis under non-standard ("behavioral") assumptions concerning consumer choice.  This provides a foundation for Behavioral Public Economics. Second, we illustrate applications of these approaches by surveying behavioral studies of policy problems involving saving, addiction, and public goods. We argue that the literature on behavioral public economics, though in its infancy, has already fundamentally changed our understanding of public policy in each of these domains.
ER  -