A Framework for Behavioral Welfare Analysis

PI将把行为经济学的最新研究成果纳入福利经济学理论。近年来，人们对用心理学方法来解决经济问题的兴趣越来越大，这主要是由于越来越多的证据表明，消费者决策的标准经济模型可能不能充分描述人类行为。包含非标准成分（由心理证据驱动）的“行为”经济学理论正越来越多地进入政策评估，这不可避免地涉及经济学家所谓的“福利分析”（即对福祉的评估）。然而，这些新理论从根本上挑战了我们制定适当标准来判断结果是“好”还是“坏”的能力。如果与经济学的传统假设相反，个人的选择并不反映连贯的偏好，那么这些选择如何能为经济学家提供判断一种结果是否比另一种结果更好的基础呢？该项目开发、应用并完善了一个统一的政策评估框架，该框架涵盖了新一代的行为经济学理论。这里发展的框架是标准福利经济学的自然延伸。标准的方法是基于选择。最简单的形式是，它建议政策制定者尊重个人为自己做出的选择。这种方法背后的指导原则是自由意志主义对选择自由的尊重的延伸，它的观点是，给一个人为自己选择的东西比给别人为他选择的东西要好。这个项目的中心前提是，即使人们的行为方式与标准经济假设不一致，同样的原则仍然适用。尽管人们的选择所提供的指导在某些情况下可能是模糊的，但在其他情况下通常是明确的，这种部分模糊的指导可以为严格的政策评估提供基础。该项目开发了政策评估的一般框架，并探讨了其对特定行为理论的影响。它还重新审视了各种各样的公共政策，采用了经济学家在评估公共政策可取性时通常使用的标准工具的概括。这项工作的更广泛影响将直接源于其重点在于制定评价公共政策的适当标准。以前的研究在公共政策分析的背景下使用了非标准的行为模型，通常依赖于评估不同结果的相对可取性的特别标准。本项目将重新审视其中的许多政策问题，如资本所得税和社会保障的设计，以根据新框架的应用确定严格合理的结论。此外，这项工作使经济学、心理学和神经科学能够更好地融合。具体来说，它允许经济学家使用任何行为模型（包括从其他领域引进的模型）进行严格的福利分析，而不管这些模型是否将行为描述为反映最优化。

The PI will incorporate recent research results from behavioral economics into the theory of welfare economics. Interest in psychological approaches to economic questions has grown in recent years, stimulated largely by accumulating evidence that the standard economic model of consumer decision-making may provide an inadequate description of human behavior. "Behavioral" economic theories that incorporate non-standard components (motivated by psychological evidence) are increasingly finding their way into policy evaluation, which inevitably involves what economists call "welfare analysis" (that is, assessments of well-being). Yet these new theories fundamentally challenge our ability to formulate appropriate criteria for judging whether outcomes are "good" or "bad." If, contrary to the traditional assumption in economics, an individual's choices do not reflect coherent preferences, how can those choices provide economists with a basis for judging whether one outcome is better than another?This project develops, applies, and refines a unified framework for policy evaluation that encompasses the new generation of behavioral economic theories. The framework developed here is a natural extension of standard welfare economics. The standard approach is based on choice. In its simplest form, it advises a policy maker to respect the choices an individual would make for himself. The guiding principle behind that approach is an extension of the libertarian deference to freedom of choice, which takes the view that it is better to give a person the thing he would choose for himself rather than something that someone else would choose for him. The central premise of this project is that the same principle remains applicable even when people behave in ways that are inconsistent with standard economic assumptions. Although the guidance provided by people's choices may be ambiguous in some circumstances, it is typically unambiguous in others, and this partially ambiguous guidance can provide a foundation for rigorous policy evaluation. The project develops a general framework for policy evaluation and explores its implications for particular behavioral theories. It also reexamines an assortment of public policies, employing generalizations of the standard tools that economists conventionally use when evaluating the desirability of public policies. The broader impact of this work will follow directly from its focus on developing appropriate criteria for evaluating public policies. Previous studies that have employed non-standard behavioral models in the context of public policy analysis have generally relied on ad hoc criteria for assessing the relative desirability of different outcomes. This project will revisit many of those policy issues, such as the design of capital income taxes and social security, to identify conclusions that are rigorously justified based on the application of the new framework. In addition, this work enables greater integration of economics, psychology, and neuroscience. Specifically, it allows economists to conduct rigorous welfare analysis using literally any model of behavior, including ones imported from other fields, regardless of whether those models depict behavior as reflecting optimization.