The Community of Advantage

Sugden presents a thought-provoking, cogent, and important analysis of behavioural economics and its policy prescriptions. * Michelle Baddeley, Economic Record *
wide-ranging, intriguing and sophisticated ... this book is essential reading to anyone who wants to get a grip on the role of markets in the age of behavioural economics. * Bart Engelen, Economics and Philosophy *
Sugden's arguments... represent a plausible alternative to the orthodox approach and will push many within the mainstream to clarify their thinking. As such, it is an essential philosophical grounding for anybody with an interest in behavioural economics. * Aveek Bhattacharya, LSE Blogs *
Robert Sugden is one of the world's most brilliant and deepest thinkers. A philosopher and an economist, he gets to the very core of the liberal tradition -- and he offers bold new perspectives on freedom, the role of the state, and the limits of paternalism. This is, I think, his best work, and one of the very few most important explorations of liberty in the last half-century. * Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, and author of The Ethics of Influence *
In this book, behavioural economics insider Robert Sugden levels a powerful and erudite argument against the use of behavioural economics to justify paternalism. Adopting the âcontractarianâ perspective proposed by James Buchanan, Sugden draws on philosophy, historic and contemporary economics and political science to burnish the age-old idea that people should be given the freedom to chart their own course, and engage in free exchange with others who wish to do so. Even to readers who neither embrace Sugden's arguments nor accept his conclusions - a group among which I classify myself - this book is critical reading for those wishing to gain an understanding of the vigorous and vibrant debate taking place over the ethical and policy implication of behavioural economics. * George Loewenstein, Carnegie Mellon University *
Robert Sugden's The Community of Advantage is a daring response to the findings of behavioural economics that show that preferences that people reveal in their choices cannot serve as a foundation for normative economics. Instead of conjuring up rational preferences that supposedly hide beneath the flawed ones we observe, Sugden proposes a radical transformation of normative economics which assesses policies by the freedom they offer interacting individuals. Sugden's arguments are a serious challenge to normative economics as we know it, and his proposals offer a fascinating unexplored path toward a replacement. * Daniel M. Hausman, Herbert A. Simon and Hilldale Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Winconsin-Madison, US *
For many years Robert Sugden has opened new pathways in economics and philosophy. This highly original monograph finally weaves together his views on rational decision, paternalism, freedom, and markets. Sugden's contractarian approach provides a much-needed alternative to libertarian paternalism, demonstrating that classic liberalism can be brought up-to-date with the latest research in behavioural economics. The Community of Advantage will become a compulsory reading for all philosophers and social scientists interested in the moral and political implications of economic science. * Francesco Guala, University of Milan *
In this book, Sugden brings together his work over twenty years in experimental economics and economic/political philosophy to develop a defence of the liberal market order in terms of advantage, understood not in terms of preference satisfaction nor in objective metrics of well-being (such as Rawls primary goods) but rather in terms of expanded opportunity sets. Sugden is one of the most interesting and creative minds working at the interface between economics and ethics these days; and his engagement with this ambitious project is a contribution of major significance. * Geoffrey Brennan, Professor of Political Science and Moral and Political Philosophy, Australian National University *
In this magisterial book, Robert Sugden provides a sophisticated defence of the market from a contractarian perspective and in doing so mounts a serious challenge to the argument that behavioural economics provides a justification for government paternalism. A must-read for all those interested in the respective roles of the market and government in making the world a better place. * Julian Le Grand, Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics *
Sugden is on a mission: to take off his pedestal that haloed figure of normative economics, the welfare planner. Its not any planners business to nudge you away from supposed psychological errors and restore some putative rationality to your choices. Sugden is a true pioneer in the analysis of both the positive and the normative dimensions of behavioural economics. His book, which weaves together arguments from economics, philosophy and psychology, is provocative, engaging, and tightly argued. It poses a fundamental challenge, from a liberal perspective, to behavioural welfare economics, and it is a must-read for all social scientists. * Marco Mariotti, Professor of Economics, Queen Mary University of London *
Can liberty be preserved while people are nudged to avoid decision errors they say they do not want to make? Read Robert Sugden, a classical liberal behavioural economist, on how opportunities for market discovery provide an answer in The Community of Advantage. * Vernon L. Smith, George L. Argyros Endowed Chair in Finance and Economics, Chapman University, Winner of 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences *