CeDEx Seminar - Benoit Tarroux (University of Rennes)

Liberal or paternalistic preferences? An experimental test

This paper studies experimentally how people value freedom of choice. Our experiment consists of facing subjects a series of binary comparisons of opportunity sets. Once the subjects have chosen between sets of alternatives, one of their choices is randomly picked: in a first treatment, they have to choose one item among the selected opportunity set (choosing for myself); in a second treatment, the opportunity set is offered to other subjects (choosing for other). This experimental methodology allows us to assess whether people exhibit liberal preferences, i.e., are respectful of choice freedom or/and others’ preferences, or tilt for paternalism. Our main result is that a majority of decision are liberal, even in the case where the patron and the protégé have difference tastes. But there is a substantial minority of decisions which seem to be paternalistic. On the contrary, in the treatment where subjects choose choice sets for themselves, they are more willing to select smaller opportunity set when they are not likely to choose the additional option.