Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/322293 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 436
Version Description: 
Revised version, May 2025
Publisher: 
University of Zurich, Department of Economics, Zurich
Abstract: 
This paper examines paternalistic preferences in large-scale experiments in the U.S. Participants decide whether to intervene to prevent a stakeholder, mistaken about their options, to make a choice that is misaligned with their preferences. We find that the willingness to intervene strongly depends on the nature of the paternalistic intervention: only a minority implements a hard intervention that limits the freedom to choose, while a majority implements a soft intervention that provides information without restricting the choice set. Based on a theoretical framework, we estimate that about half of the participants are welfarists, while a third are libertarian paternalists.
Subjects: 
paternalism
libertarian paternalism
welfarism
freedom to choose
JEL: 
C91
C93
D69
D91
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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