CAREER: Intergenerational and Behavioral Issues in Public Economics

职业：公共经济学中的代际和行为问题

• 批准号: 0134618
• 负责人: Antonio Rangel
• 金额: $ 31.17万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-06-01 至 2007-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0134618&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Intergenerational; Behavioral; Issues; Public

This CAREER project proposes to analyze the role that intergenerational and behavioral issues play on the design and analysis of public policy. The project has three components. The first component studies what types of institutions, existing or not, are able to generate optimal investment in future generations, and to protect them from expropriation. It includes the development of theoretical models to understand how to design fiscal constitutions that generate optimal investment in intergenerational public goods, such as the environment, and protect future generations from expropriation through fiscal policy. The key question is: How can we design institutions that give a "voice" to the interests of people who have not been born yet. We plan to test empirically this theory by using the last 200 years of American history to study the extent to which American institutions have generated "good" intergenerational outcomes. This includes the development of a new database on the finances of the Federal Government from 1820 to the present. The second component develops a new model of decision-making and welfare that uses as primitives brain structures and their operations, instead of preferences and preference maximization. The model incorporates important insights from psychology and neuro-science, and has the potential to explain why agents engage in self-defeating behaviors such as under-saving and addiction. Also, and most importantly for Public Economics, the model generates well-defined welfare evaluations that can be used to evaluate public policy. This theory will be used to improve our understanding of advertisement, savings policy, drug policy, health policy, and risky behaviors. Finally, the third component of the project is the career educational plan on Public and Behavioral Economics that includes, among others, the development of a behavioral economics research group at Stanford University, and the development of a new graduate textbook in Public Economics.Intergenerational and behavioral issues lie at the center of some of the most important current debates in public policy. Examples of intergenerational policy problems include Global Warming, R&D, and the AIDS epidemic. These problems are difficult to handle because the generations that would benefit most from these policies are not the ones paying for them. Examples of behavioral policy problems include the design of social insurance programs, crime, and addiction. Behaviors such as systematic financial mismanagement and the consumption of addictive substances challenge the predictions and the policy prescriptions of standard economic analysis, which presupposes that agents are quite "rational." The basic motivation for this research is that an improved understanding of these issues will allow us to design better public policies and ultimately better institutions.

这个职业生涯项目建议分析代际和行为问题在公共政策的设计和分析中发挥的作用。该项目有三个组成部分。第一个组成部分研究什么类型的机构，现有的或没有的，能够产生最佳的投资后代，并保护他们免受征用。它包括理论模型的发展，以了解如何设计财政宪法，产生代际公共产品的最佳投资，如环境，并通过财政政策保护后代免受征用。关键的问题是：我们如何才能设计出一种制度，让尚未出生的人的利益得到“发言权”。我们计划通过使用过去200年的美国历史来研究美国制度在多大程度上产生了“良好的”代际结果，从而实证检验这一理论。这包括建立一个新的数据库，记录1820年至今联邦政府的财政情况。第二个组成部分开发了一个新的决策和福利模型，使用原始的大脑结构和它们的操作，而不是偏好和偏好最大化。该模型融合了心理学和神经科学的重要见解，并有可能解释为什么代理人会从事自我挫败的行为，如储蓄不足和成瘾。此外，对于公共经济学来说，最重要的是，该模型生成了定义明确的福利评估，可用于评估公共政策。这一理论将用于提高我们对广告，储蓄政策，药品政策，健康政策和危险行为的理解。最后，第三部分是公共经济学和行为经济学的职业教育计划，其中包括在斯坦福大学成立行为经济学研究小组，以及开发新的公共经济学研究生教科书。代际和行为问题是当前公共政策中一些最重要的辩论的中心。代际政策问题的例子包括全球变暖、研发和艾滋病流行。这些问题很难处理，因为从这些政策中受益最多的几代人并不是为这些政策买单的人。行为政策问题的例子包括社会保险计划的设计，犯罪和成瘾。系统性的财务管理不善和成瘾性物质的消费等行为挑战了标准经济分析的预测和政策规定，这一分析的前提是行为人是相当“理性的”。“这项研究的基本动机是，对这些问题的更好理解将使我们能够设计更好的公共政策，并最终设计更好的机构。