Policy Evaluation Beyond Averages: Distributional Impact Analysis.

评估社会和经济政策的影响是政策制定者的核心关切。然而，评估这些政策的方式往往并不有效，这意味着可以制定一项对社会上正确的人没有好处的政策，甚至可能伤害它本应帮助的人。这项工作将使政策制定者能够在制定和执行政策方面做出更明智和更准确的决定，这意味着整个社会将受益，因为政策可以更准确地设计成满足正确人群的正确需求。绝大多数影响研究使用的诊断工具侧重于一项政策的平均得失。这是一个潜在的重要缺点，因为在实践中，大多数人不会得到平均收益或损失。一项政策的平均效果并不能说明谁是政策的输家，谁是政策的受益者，而且影响的方向和程度可能会因个人而异。在这项研究中，我开发了量化技术，允许进行更细微的政策评估。我打算制作一种统计工具，使社会科学家和政策制定者能够超越计算平均影响的范围，同时确保他们的分析捕捉到正在研究的政策的不同影响。通过允许对个人进行不同的影响评估，我关于因果分析的新视角将提供创新的方法，有助于改善资源分配和针对特定人群的政策设计，并有可能实现深远的好处。我将集中在三个具体的任务上：1.生产工具，捕捉因果关系的多样性。我将介绍因果分析和政策评估的统计方法，使研究人员和政策制定者能够揭示政策和治疗的复杂性和不同影响。通过推广经典方法(所谓的工具变量方法)，我将建立健全应用我的方法所必需的新的理论结果，并将用几个领域的具体例子来说明这些结果，例如经济学和卫生科学。促进细致入微的量化政策评估。我的方法将改变量化政策评估的做法，允许政策制定者和社会科学家确定谁从政策或治疗中受益，谁从政策或治疗中蒙受损失。它们将能够制定细致入微和准确的政策诊断，减少政策执行所固有的风险。我将访问领先的政策导向机构，并与科学界以外的从业者合作，以展示我的方法将如何使他们能够解决一系列新的政策问题，并实现更微妙的政策诊断。让我的方法可用。我将通过免费提供的开放源码软件向从业者提供实施我的方法所需的技术和文件。我还将通过在领先的学术和非学术机构组织研讨会和演讲，直接向从业者宣传我的方法。

Assessing the impact of social and economic policies is a central concern for policymakers. However the way those policies are evaluated is often not effective, which means that a policy can be put in place that does not benefit to the right people in society, or might even harm those it is meant to help. This work will enable policymakers to make much more informed and accurate decisions in relation to developing and implementing policy, meaning that society as a whole will benefit as policy can be more accurately be designed to meet the right needs of the right people.The diagnostic tools employed by the vast majority of impact studies focus on average gains or losses from a policy. This is a potentially important shortcoming since, in practice, most individuals will not receive the average benefit or loss. The average effect of a policy is not informative about who loses and who benefits from a policy, and both the direction and magnitude of the effect may vary substantially across individuals. In this research, I develop quantitative techniques which allow for more nuanced policy evaluation. I intend to produce a statistical tool that will enable social scientists and policymakers to go beyond calculating average effects, while ensuring that their analysis captures the diverse effects of the policy under study.By allowing for differentiated impact evaluation across individuals, my novel perspective on causal analysis will provide innovative methods that will help improve allocation of resources and the design of policies targeted at specific populations, and has potential to achieve far-reaching benefits. I will focus on three specific tasks:1. Producing tools capturing the diversity of causal effects. I will introduce statistical methods for causal analysis and policy evaluation that allow for researchers and policymakers to uncover the complexity and diverse impacts of policies and treatments. By generalising a classical method (the so-called instrumental variables method), I will establish new theoretical results necessary for the sound application of my approach, and will illustrate these results with concrete examples from several fields, such as economics and health sciences.2. Promoting nuanced quantitative policy evaluation. My approach will change the practice of quantitative policy evaluation by allowing policymakers and social scientists to determine who benefits and who loses from a policy or treatment. They will be able to formulate nuanced and accurate policy diagnostics reducing the risks inherent to policy implementation. I will visit leading policy-oriented institutions, and collaborate with practitioners outside the scientific community in order to demonstrate how my methods will allow them to address a range of new policy questions and achieve more nuanced policy diagnostics.3. Making my methods available. I will provide practitioners with the technology and documentation necessary for the implementation of my methods through a freely available and open source software. I will also advertise my methods directly to practitioners through the organisation of workshops and presentations in leading academic and nonacademic institutions.