Carl Christian von Weizsäcker Can We Maintain Normative Individualism when Allowing for Preferences to Be Adaptive?

Carl Christian von Weizsäcker is Emeritus Professor for Economics and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, Germany. His areas of interest include welfare economics with adaptive preferences, history of economics and social market economics. Von Weizsäcker has held teaching positions at serval high profile universities, including the University of Heidelberg, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cologne. He chaired the German Monopoly Commission and is a member of the Advisory Group of the German Minister of Economic Affairs. He has published numerous scientific articles and books and is a founding member and fellow of the European Economic Association, foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of Acatech (National Academy of Science and Engineering).

Area of Research

Capital Theory, Climate Policy, History of Economics, Social Market Economy, Euro-Crisis, Welfare Economics with Adaptive Preferences, Economics

Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. "Die normative Ko-Evolution von Marktwirtschaft und Demokratie." In ORDO, Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 2014: 13-43.  
Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. "Public Debt and Price Stability." German Economic Review 15 (2014): 42-61.  
Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. Wachstum, Zins und optimale Investitionsquote. Basel-Tübingen: Kyklos, 1962.  
Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. "Notes on Endogenous Change of Tastes." Journal of Economic Theory 3 (1971): 345-371.  
Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. "The Costs of Substitution." Econometrica 52 (1984): 1085-1116.  

since 2004

Senior Research Fellow

Max Planck Society

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

1986-2003

Professor of Economics

University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln)

1982-1986

Professor of Economics

University of Bern (Universität Bern)

1974-1981

Professor of Economics

University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn)

1972-1974

Professor of Mathematical Economics

University of Bielefeld (Universität Bielefeld)

1968-1970

Professor of Economics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

1965-1972

Professor of Economics

Heidelberg University (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)

1964-1965

Researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute

Max Planck Society

1962-1964

Postdoctoral Fellowship

MIT and University of Cambridge

1965

Habilitation in Economics

University of Basel (Universität Basel)

1961

PhD in Economics

University of Basel (Universität Basel)

Thesis "Wachstum, Zins und optimale Investitionsquote"

- Director of the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (1986-2003)

- Fellow of the Econometric Society

- Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

- Founding Member and Fellow of the European Economic Association

- Member of Acatech, National Academy of Science and Engineering

- Member of the Advisory Group of the German Minister of Economic Affairs (since 1977)

- Member of the German Monopoly Commission (1986-1998, 1989-1998 Chairman)

- Member of the Nordrhein Westfalian Academy of Sciences

Departing from the standard model of economics with the assumption that humans have fixed preferences, or tastes, more recent behavioral insights show that preferences are influenced by past consumption in a way that the status quo is often valued higher than alternatives. CARL CHRISTIAN VON WEIZSÄCKER adds this “adaptiveness” to the standard model of preferences and shows that this still allows performing standard welfare analysis. In showing that improvement paths are always non-circular, the altered model even delivers a foundation to do behavioral welfare economics.

LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10084

Adaptive Preferences and Institutional Stability

  • Carl Christian von Weizsäcker
  • Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics JITE
  • Published in 2014
Carl Christian von Weizsäcker. "Adaptive Preferences and Institutional Stability." Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics JITE 170 (2014): 27-36.