Self-Control Failures, as Judged by Themselves

Featured speaker: Liam Delaney, Professor, LSE

Abstract: The existence of self-control failures is often used to legitimize public policy interventions. The argument is that reducing self-control failures can make people better off, as judged by themselves. However, there is only scarce evidence on the frequency and welfare costs of self-control failures. This paper presents a survey method that allows us to measure self-control failures in everyday life and to identify their welfare costs in terms of associations with experienced subjective well-being. We present novel survey evidence using this method and discuss its implications for behavioral welfare economics and public policy-making.

Leonhard K. Lades^a and Liam Delaney^b

^aUniversity College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland, Email: leonhard.lades@ucd.ie. Corresponding Author.

^bDepartment of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics. Email: l.d.delaney@lse.ac.uk

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