Modeling the Individual for Constitutional Choice

This paper is about the use of the homo economicus behavioral model in the constitutional political economy research program. The paper argues that all existing arguments in defense of the behavioral model fail. These arguments are: the symmetry argument, the enterprise argument, the increasing costs argument, and the crowding out argument. As a result, those working in the constitutional political economy tradition are not justified in employing homo economicus, at least not until a new argument successfully defending the behavioral model is provided.