Description
This paper develops new foundations for behaviourally informed consumer law and policy interventions in consumer markets. Public policymakers and scholars commonly adopt behavioural law and economics as a theoretical approach when integrating empirical insights about consumer behaviour into law and policy.This paper argues that orthodox behavioural law and economics is not an appropriate approach to legal analysis under conditions of true uncertainty and computational intractability. Since both conditions are common in the real consumer world in which legal policymaking occurs, behaviourally informed consumer law should be underpinned by a different theoretical approach. Even though scholarly criticism of behavioural law and economics exists, alternative behavioural approaches to legal analysis have hardly been devised. This paper fills this gap by exploring two alternative approaches – ecological rationality theory and autonomy theory – as normative foundations for integrating behavioural insights into consumer law and policy.
The paper develops both alternative approaches within the dominant paradigm of behavioural law that analyses the implications of human biases for law and policy. Both alternative approaches have their roots outside of economics and are not grounded in welfare analysis. Both reject rational choice theory as a normative theory of consumer choice. It is shown that each of the two alternative frameworks, if adopted, would lead to significant changes (compared to orthodox behavioural law and economics) in terms of what consumer biases are, when they occur, how consumer biases and their causes are conceptualised, and when regulation is warranted.
| Period | Apr 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | York, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |