CAREER: The Welfare Consequences of Social Insurance and Redistributive Taxation: Evidence and Policy Implications

2004年，美国在收入保障和再分配税收计划上花费了大约1万亿美元。从社会福利最大化的角度来看，这个社会安全网是否可取？能否改进社会安全网的结构，以提供同等水平的利益，同时从总体经济效率方面降低成本？该项目旨在找出改进大型政府项目设计的方法。该项目围绕三个广泛的想法进行组织：一、流动性。现有的研究假设，对政府政策的行为反应--如失业救济金导致的失业持续时间延长--是由道德风险(替代效应)引起的，而不是流动性(收入)效应。然而，当个人的储蓄有限时，就像许多经历失业或疾病等冲击的代理人一样，他们可能仅仅因为手头有更多的现金(流动性)而改变自己的行为。该项目开发了评估流动性与道德风险的重要性的方法。这些估计值被用来量化各种政府计划的价值。例如，该方法被应用于按诊断条件计算提供医疗保险的价值，以便准确地表征在联邦医疗保险和医疗补助等政府计划中应优先考虑哪些类型的医疗保险。二、承诺。许多家庭有住房等当冲击发生时难以调整的“消费承诺”。现有的最优政策分析忽略了此类承诺，因为它们假设，当冲击发生时，家庭可以调整所有商品的消费。这个项目表明，相对于中等规模的风险，承诺放大了风险厌恶。因此，与通过税收或福利支持提供长期再分配的计划相比，承诺增加了计划的价值，这些计划确保了暂时的冲击。因此，当考虑到承诺时，社会安全网的最优设计可能具有非常不同的特点。三、突出度。政府政策经济模型中的另一个基准假设是，所有代理人都充分了解并优化了政府政策创造的激励措施。该项目开发了检验这一重要假设的方法。与H&A；R Block合作，我们研究了2007年向报税人提供简单的劳动所得税抵免(EITC)信息的效果。我们对4万名H&amp；R Block客户进行了一项实验，并跟踪他们在两年内的收入。EITC的目标是鼓励个人更多地工作；我们的目标是测试EITC提供的激励措施对个人是否有帮助(例如，每多赚10美元，就有4美元)有助于实现这一目标。这项研究直接适用于广泛的政策问题。该项目帮助政策制定者评估社会保障私有化、消费税改革或引入失业和医疗保险储蓄账户等政策变化的影响。该项目还有助于确定实现经济福利最大化的政策的新方法。例如，将EITC直接纳入每周工资中，可能会使激励措施更加突出，同时提供更多流动性。该项目还可能揭示简化税法的最佳方法，总统的税收改革小组强调这一问题是一个优先事项。

The United States spent approximately $1 trillion on income security and redistributive tax programs in 2004. Is this social safety net desirable from the perspective of maximizing social welfare? Can the structure of the social safety net be improved to provide the same level of benefits while reducing costs in terms of aggregate economic efficiency? This project aims to identify ways to improve the design of large-scale government programs. The project is organized around three broad ideas: I. Liquidity. Existing studies have assumed that behavioral responses to government policies -- such as the increase in unemployment durations caused by unemployment benefits -- are caused by moral hazard (a substitution effect), rather than a liquidity (income) effect. However, when individuals have limited savings, as do many agents experiencing shocks such as job loss or illness, they may change their behavior simply because they have more cash-on-hand (liquidity). This project develops methods to estimate the importance of liquidity vs. moral hazard. These estimates are used to quantify the value of various government programs. For example, the method is applied to calculate the value of providing health insurance by diagnostic condition, in order to precisely characterize which types of health insurance coverage should be prioritized in government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. II. Commitments. Many households have "consumption commitments" such as housing that are difficult to adjust when shocks occur. Existing analyses of optimal policy neglect such commitments by assuming that households can adjust consumption of all goods when shocks occur. This project shows that commitments amplify risk aversion over moderate-sized risks. Commitments therefore increase the value of programs that insure temporary shocks relative to programs that provide long-term redistribution through taxation or welfare support. Hence, the optimal design of the social safety net may have very different characteristics when commitments are taken into account. III. Salience. Another benchmark assumption in economic models of government policy is that all agents are fully informed of and optimize with respect to the incentives created by government policies. This project develops methods to test this important assumption. In collaboration with H&R Block, we study the effects of providing simple information on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to tax filers in 2007. We conduct an experiment involving 40,000 H&R Block clients and track the amount they earn over two years. The goal of the EITC is to encourage individuals to work more; our objective is to test whether making the incentives provided by the EITC clear to individuals (e.g. $4 for every extra $10 earned) helps achieve this objective. The research has direct applicability to a broad range of policy issues. The project assists policy makers in assessing the implications of policy changes such as social security privatization, consumption tax reforms, or the introduction of unemployment and health insurance savings accounts. The project also helps identify new ways to implement policies that maximize economic welfare. For example, incorporating the EITC directly into weekly paychecks may make the incentives more salient while providing more liquidity. The project could also shed light on the best methods to simplify the tax code, an issue emphasized as a priority by the President's Tax Reform Panel.