Related papers: Ranking Policies Under Loss Aversion and Inequalit…

This paper develops theoretical criteria and econometric methods to rank policy interventions in terms of welfare when individuals are loss-averse. Our new criterion for "loss aversion-sensitive dominance" defines a weak partial ordering of…

Many policies allocate harms or benefits that are uncertain in nature: they produce distributions over the population in which individuals have different probabilities of incurring harm or benefit. Comparing different policies thus involves…

We develop an axiomatic framework to evaluate income distributions from the perspective of an opportunity-egalitarian social planner. Building on a formal link with the literature on decision theory under ambiguity, we characterize a class…

We use a controlled laboratory experiment to study the causal impact of income decreases within a time period on redistribution decisions at the end of that period, in an environment where we keep fixed the sum of incomes over the period.…

When a policy prioritizes one person over another, is it because they benefit more, or because they are preferred? This paper develops a method to uncover the values consistent with observed allocation decisions. We use machine learning…

This paper studies identification and inference of the welfare gain that results from switching from one policy (such as the status quo policy) to another policy. The welfare gain is not point identified in general when data are obtained…

We discover a fundamental and previously unrecognized structure within the class of additively separable social welfare functions that makes it straightforward to fully characterize and elicit the social preferences of an inequality-averse…

This paper delves into financial markets that incorporate a novel form of heterogeneity among investors, specifically in terms of their beliefs regarding the reliability of signals in the business cycle economy model, which may be biased.…

How should well-being be prioritised in society, and what trade-offs are people willing to make between fairness and personal well-being? We investigate these questions using a stated preference experiment with a nationally representative…

We present a new approach to the problems of evaluating and learning personalized decision policies from observational data of past contexts, decisions, and outcomes. Only the outcome of the enacted decision is available and the historical…

Empirical research shows that individuals' responses to treatments vary along latent characteristics, such as innate ability or motivation. Therefore, a policymaker seeking to maximize welfare may consider designing policies based on…

Statistical inferential results generally come with a measure of reliability for decision-making purposes. For a policy implementer, the value of implementing published policy research depends critically upon this reliability. For a policy…

This paper proposes a framewrok for analyzing how the welfare effects of policy interventions are distributed across individuals when those effects are unobserved. Rather than focusing solely on average outcomes, the approach uses readily…

Social and political polarization is a significant source of conflict and poor governance in many societies. Thus, understanding its causes has become a priority of scholars across many disciplines. Here we demonstrate that shifts in…

We state the problem of inverse reinforcement learning in terms of preference elicitation, resulting in a principled (Bayesian) statistical formulation. This generalises previous work on Bayesian inverse reinforcement learning and allows us…

Empirical researchers and decision-makers spanning various domains frequently seek profound insights into the long-term impacts of interventions. While the significance of long-term outcomes is undeniable, an overemphasis on them may…

Opportunities, such as access to education or family background, shape income inequality by influencing the chances of economic success. Unequal opportunities create uncertainty about whether success is merit- or luck-based. We examine how…

To choose between two discrete goods, a consumer pays attention to only those with prices below a threshold. From these, she chooses her most preferred good. We assume consumers in a population have the same preference but may have…

This paper attempts to find a relationship between agents' risk aversion and inequality of incomes. Specifically, a model is proposed for the evolution in time of surplus/deficit distribution, and the long-time distributions are…

A mathematical model of measurement of the perception of well-being for groups with increasing incomes, but proportionally unequal is proposed. Assuming that welfare grows with own income and decreases with relative inequality (income of…