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ABSTRACTThis article questions the validity of widely promulgated claims that Sri Lanka's debt crisis is the result of a combination of Chinese debt diplomacy and economic mismanagement in the form of fiscal and monetary excesses. The authors argue that if Sri Lanka has fallen into any kind of debt trap, it is an international sovereign bond debt trap. They further argue that the fundamental cause of the country's debt crisis is the failure of successive Sri Lankan administrations to transition towards an export‐oriented manufacturing economy focused on producing increasingly technologically sophisticated manufactured products, and lay the blame for this failure on a combination of external and domestic forces operating in tandem with one another. Since the remedial action taken by the Sri Lankan government in the context of an extended fund facility arrangement with the International Monetary Fund is premised on the contention that the source of the crisis is the protracted fiscal and monetary excesses of successive Sri Lankan administrations, this action is unlikely to offer a permanent solution to Sri Lanka's debt problem — just as similar attempts to remedy previous debt and currency crises have failed.

In this paper we argue that Irving Fisher (1867–1947) is an unacknowledged pioneer of modern behavioral economics. Fisher's behavioralist orientation is evident in his writings on alcohol prohibition. In these works, Fisher argued that behavioral anomalies prevent individuals from making rational choices regarding alcohol consumption. Fisher thought these anomalies arose from three sources: 1) incomplete information; 2) limited cognitive abilities; and 3) lack of willpower. These are essentially the same barriers to rational choice identified by modern-day New Paternalists. Therefore, we argue that Fisher's work on Prohibition was a pioneering academic achievement that anticipated recent developments in economics, and not an unscientific diatribe, as previous commentators have presumed. Unlike modern-day 'New Paternalists,' however, Fisher rejected minor alterations to the choice architecture and advocated outright prohibition instead. This helps to illustrate a potential slippery-slope problem with modern New Paternalist arguments that should be addressed.