CAREER: Market Imperfections and the Welfare Measurement of Government Intervention

研究人员开发了理论模型和实证研究方法，以促进我们对市场缺陷的理解，并改进对政府政策福利影响的有效衡量。其核心主题是，许多市场摩擦为政府干预提供了潜在的理由，也使得衡量这些干预的价值(或缺乏价值)变得困难。这项研究旨在为准确衡量个人为政府政策变化支付费用的意愿提供有用的工具，这些政策涉及保险市场政策(例如补贴和授权)、医疗补助和食品券等非市场商品以及基于地点的政策，特别是旨在改善贫困社区低收入家庭儿童结果的政策。这项研究围绕三个主题展开：信息、通过非市场商品进行的再分配以及地方和向上流动。从信息的角度来看，这个项目展示了个人关于未来不良事件的私人信息如何阻止私人保险市场为这一风险提供保险的能力。这为政府干预提供了一个潜在的理由，但它也表明，传统的干预方法系统性地低估了纠正政策的价值。调查人员还提供了纠正现有方法的方法，以及利用事先对了解未来不良事件的反应的新方法。从通过非市场商品重新分配的角度来看，许多政府支出是通过非市场商品(如医疗保险、补贴、食品券)提供的。研究人员开发工具来正确地衡量这些政策的影响，并将它们嵌套在一个福利框架中，该框架可以将它们的影响与其他具有类似分布发生率的政策进行比较。最后，从地方和向上流动性的角度，这个项目解决了我们如何识别和衡量政府针对弱势背景和社区儿童的政策对福利的影响。这包括(与当地住房当局合作)对随机对照试验的分析，以帮助减少寻求搬到更好的社区抚养孩子的家庭面临的障碍。

The investigator develops theoretical models and empirical methods to advance our understanding of market imperfections and improve the measurement of the welfare impact of government policies. The central theme is that many market frictions which provide potential rationales for government intervention also make it difficult to measure the value (or lack thereof) of those interventions. This research aims to provide tools for accurate measurement of individuals' willingness to pay for government policy changes towards insurance market policies (e.g. subsidies and mandates), non-market goods such as Medicaid and food stamps, and place-based policies, with a particular focus on policies aimed at improving outcomes for low-income children in disadvantaged neighborhoods.This research is aligned on three themes: information, redistribution through non-market goods, and place and upward mobility. From an information standpoint, this project shows how individuals' private information about future adverse events can prevent the ability of private insurance markets to insure this risk. This generates a potential rationale for government intervention, but it also suggests traditional approaches systematically under-estimate the value of corrective policies. The investigator provides methods for correcting existing methods, as well as new methods that exploit ex-ante responses to learning about future adverse events. From a redistribution through non-market goods standpoint, many government expenditures are provided via non-market goods (e.g. health insurance subsidies, food stamps). The investigator develops tools to correctly measure the impact of these policies and nest them into a welfare framework that compares their impacts to other policies with similar distributional incidence. Finally, from a place and upward mobility standpoint, this project addresses how we can identify and measure the welfare impact of government policies targeted towards children from disadvantaged backgrounds and neighborhoods. This includes analyses of randomized controlled trials (in collaboration with local housing authorities) to help reduce the barriers faced by families seeking to move to better neighborhoods in which to raise their children.