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
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
