Abstract

This paper argues that there are areas of political behavior for which the usual assumption of wealth maximizing homo economicus is to narrow to generate convincing explanation of behavior. In particular, it is argued that for many political decisions, people choose according to some set of moral preconceptions while for others, people have insufficient information to make economic choices even if they were inclined to do so. This implies that normative public choice can only be part of a political decision process in which non-pecuniary concerns influence choices. Finally, constitutional economics insofar as it is conceptually conceived, must presume some set of moral and informational properties of the parties to the social contract.