Paternalism and Entrepreneurship

I explore the area of economic life at the border between paternalism and entrepreneurship, with reference to dual-self Planner/ Doer models used in behavioural economics. Using a concept of a ‘continuing person’ as the composition of her Doer selves at all points in time, I argue that competitive markets provide individuals with every opportunity for feasible voluntary exchanges that they collectively want to use. The mechanism that achieves this result is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs do not respond to the preferences that people hold as Planners; they try to anticipate the future preferences of Doers.