Edward R. Morey
Professor Emeritus
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Edward R. Morey
Professor Emeritus
Hi. I am a Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
My interests include behavior, choice, and well-being. Also ethics, notably how welfare economics (the ethic of many economists) contrasts with other ethics such as Kantian, Virtue, and Buddhist.
My academic research models choices, WTP (willingness to pay), and WTA (willingness to accept), applying these models to health and environmental choices. My research has been cited thousands of times.
For years, I taught a happiness course to students in economics, psychology, and philosophy.
I allocate my time between skis, bikes, and the study of behavior. Am I allocating correctly? Am I maximizing my well-being?
My new accessible, mathless book at SpringerLink
Available electronically gratis from academic institutions
Neoclassical economists assume that people act to maximize their well-being: they choose based on their desires and only desire what they will like. Neuroscientists and psychologists have their doubts. Their research demonstrates that cues and evolutionary quirks cause people to act against their best interests, even choosing alternatives they will not like. I deconstruct neoclassical choice theory and contrast it with behavioral models and findings in psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior. Economists assume behaviors are chosen; I explain why other disciplines disagree, asking what is a choice. Welfare economics, the default ethic for most economists, is compared and contrasted with Mill’s liberalism, virtue ethics, duty-based ethics, Buddhist ethics, and utilitarianism.
Available electronically gratis from academic institutions
Neoclassical economists assume that people act to maximize their well-being: they choose based on their desires and only desire what they will like. Neuroscientists and psychologists have their doubts. Their research demonstrates that cues and evolutionary quirks cause people to act against their best interests, even choosing alternatives they will not like. I deconstruct neoclassical choice theory and contrast it with behavioral models and findings in psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior. Economists assume behaviors are chosen; I explain why other disciplines disagree, asking what is a choice. Welfare economics, the default ethic for most economists, is compared and contrasted with Mill’s liberalism, virtue ethics, duty-based ethics, Buddhist ethics, and utilitarianism.
