Herbert Gintis and the Societal Origins of Preferences: A Personal Memoir

Abstract

In this personal memoir of my lifelong collaborator and friend, Herb Gintis, I reflect on his “A Radical Analysis of Welfare Economics and Individual Development.” Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1972, the article advances a novel Marx-inspired interpretation of the societal origins of preferences, one that profoundly influenced the ideas of a group of like-minded young economists at Harvard at the time, economics more broadly, and Herb and my subsequent joint work. JEL Classification: B14, B21, D01