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By examining the development of economics in the 20th century, this book argues that the breakthroughs of post WWII general equilibrium theory and its rejection of utilitarianism and marginal productivity have been misunderstood. Mandler maintains that although earlier neoclassicism deserved criticism, current theory does not adequately address the problems the discarded concepts were designed to solve, and that intractable dilemmas therefore appear.

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Economics without Preferences lays out a new microeconomics – a theory of choice behavior, markets, and welfare – when agents lack the preferences and marginal judgments that economics normally relies on. Agents without preferences defy the rules of the traditional model of rational choice but they can still systematically pursue their interests. The theory that results resolves several puzzles in economics. Status quo bias and other anomalies of behavioral economics shield agents from harm; they are expressions rather than violations of (...) rationality. Parts of economic orthodoxy go out the window. Agents will fail to make the fine-grained trade-offs between options ingrained in conventional economics, leading market prices to be volatile and cost-benefit analysis to break down. This book provides policy alternatives to fill this void. Governments can spur innovation, the main benefit markets can deliver, while sheltering agents from the upheavals that accompany economic change. (shrink)

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