Reply to Posner

Theories and Tropes: A Reply to Posner and Kelman

We are grateful to Richard Posner and Mark Kelman for their detailed comments on our article. Their objections come from opposite directions. Judge Posner complains that behavioral economics is not a "theory" and is indeed "antitheoretical"'; he invokes "evolutionary considerations"2 in the interest of providing a unitary account of both rational and "quasi rational" behavior, as well as bounde...

Is Posner Right? An Empirical Test of the Posner Argument for Transferring Health Spending from Old Women to Old Men

Is Posner Right? An Empirical Test of the Posner Argument for Transferring Health Spending from Old Women to Old Men * Posner (1995) proposes the redistribution of health spending from old women to old men to equalize life expectancy. His argument is based on the assumption that women’s utility is higher if they are married. Thus, extending the lifespan of men would benefit women. Using life sa...

Is Posner right ? An empirical test of the Posner argument for transferring health spending from old women to old men

Posner (1995) proposes the redistribution of health spending from old women to old men to equalize life expectancy. His argument is based on the assumption that women’s utility is higher if they are married. Using life satisfaction data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we conduct an empirical test of this assumption. We apply a two-step estimation strategy: first, we use a pro...

Judge Posner through dissenting eyes.

The Authors’ Reply