Sunday, December 8
Fri
Sep
17

Incorporating Social Welfare in Program-Evaluation and Treatment Choice

Speakers:

Debopam BhattacharyaUniversity Of Cambridge

 
17
September,
2021
03:30 PM to 05:00 PM (IST)

The econometric literature on program-evaluation and optimal treatment-choice takes functionals of outcome-distributions as `social-welfare’ and ignores program-impacts on unobserved utilities, whereas the utility-based welfare-analysis tradition in public-finance ignores unobserved heterogeneity in individual preferences. This paper reconciles the econometric and public-finance approaches to welfare-analysis in the practically important setting of discrete-choice. We show that under unrestricted preference-heterogeneity and income-effects, the distribution of individual indirect-utility is nonparametrically identified from average demand. This enables cost-benefit analysis of non-marginal policy-interventions and their optimal targeting based on planners’ re-distributional preferences. Our methods are illustrated via empirical analyses of an experimental and an observational dataset.

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Date & Time

17-09-2021
03:30 PM
to 05:00 PM (IST)

Location

Anywhere

Venue

Online Event

Event Type

IEG Seminar

Event Category

Speaker(s)

Debopam Bhattacharya

University Of Cambridge