Persuasion, psychology and public choice

There has been a division of labor in the “behavioral sciences”. This is perhaps most striking in two of the largest behavioral disciplines, economics and psychology. Since 1990, a number of economists have crossed this boundary. But James Buchanan was one of the first economists to take the problem of moral intuitions and the origins of preferences seriously, and to treat them analytically.

► Persuasion means something more than new information or mental considerations. ► James Buchanan has connected rules and persuasion in a way that unites psychology and economics. ► Public choice explainswhy rules are based on norms, and why norms are based on rules.