This paper discusses libertarian (or soft) paternalism, as proposed among others by Thaler and Sunstein (2008). It is argued that libertarian paternalism should not be understood as an efficiency-enhancing, but as a redistributive concept. The relationship between libertarian paternalism and...

Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is a country nearly evenly divided between two political ideologies: liberal vs. conservative, red state vs. blue state. Our study of voter and public polling data suggests this view is incorrect; a significant portion of voters can be classified...