Bounded Rationality and Public Policy

1. Front Matter

   Pages 1-15

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2. Introduction

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 1-16

3. Anomalies

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 17-48

4. Information, Learning and Markets

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 49-73

5. Markets and Reference Dependent Preferences

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 75-92

6. Welfare

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 93-131

7. Public Policy and Bounded Rationality

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 133-161

8. Standard Fiscal Policy and Merit Wants

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 163-186

9. Agency and Dependency

   • Alistair Munro

   Pages 187-206

10. Tax Policy

    • Alistair Munro

    Pages 207-226

11. Framing Matters: Non-Standard Fiscal Policy

    • Alistair Munro

    Pages 227-257

12. Stated Preference and Non-Market Decisions

    • Alistair Munro

    Pages 259-283

13. Back Matter

    Pages 1-35

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This book is about bounded rationality and public policy. It is written from the p- spective of someone trained in public economics who has encountered the enormous literature on experiments in decision-making and wonders what implications it has for the normative aspects of public policy. Though there are a few new results or models, to a large degree the book is synthetic in tone, bringing together disparate literatures and seeking some accommodation between them. It has had a long genesis. It began with a draft of a few chapters in 2000, but has expanded in scope and size as the literature on behavioural economics has grown. At some point I realised that the geometric growth of behavioural - search and the arithmetic growth of my writing were inconsistent with an am- tion to be exhaustive. As such therefore I have concentrated on particular areas of behavioural economics and bounded rationality. The resulting book is laid out as follows: Chapter 1 provides an overview of the rest ofthe book, goes through some basic de?nitions and identi?es themes.

• behavioral economics
• behavioural economics
• bounded rationality
• economics
• fiscal policy
• merit wants
• non-market valuation
• public policy
• welfare

From the reviews:

“Alistair Munro’s book … provides an important contribution to this emerging literature. The author has a broad scope and examines several implications of bounded rationality that are of interest for public economics. … several implications of bounded rationality that are relevant for environmental economists are addressed, mainly for non-market valuation research. … The material is accessible for researchers or graduate students who want to be introduced to the topic, while several chapters tackle more advanced issues that can be of interest for an expert audience.” (W. J. W. Botzen, Environmental and Resource Economics, Vol. 49, 2011)

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