Gateway to Think Tanks
来源类型 | Working Paper |
规范类型 | 报告 |
DOI | 10.3386/w22916 |
来源ID | Working Paper 22916 |
The Demand for Bad Policy when Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects | |
Ernesto Dal Bó; Pedro Dal Bó; Erik Eyster | |
发表日期 | 2016-12-12 |
出版年 | 2016 |
语种 | 英语 |
摘要 | Although most of the political-economy literature blames inefficient policies on institutions or politicians' motives to supply bad policy, voters may themselves be partially responsible by demanding bad policy. In this paper, we posit that voters may systematically err when assessing potential changes in policy by underappreciating how new policies lead to new equilibrium behavior. This biases voters towards policy changes that create direct benefits—welfare would rise if behavior were held constant—even if these policies lower welfare because people adjust behavior. Conversely, voters are biased against policies that impose direct costs even if they induce larger indirect benefits. Using a lab experiment, we find that a majority of subjects vote against policies that, while inflicting negative direct effects, would help them to overcome social dilemmas and thereby increase welfare; conversely, subjects support policies that, while producing direct benefits, create social dilemmas and ultimately hurt welfare; both mistakes arise because subjects fail to fully anticipate the equilibrium effects of new policies. More precisely, we establish that subjects systematically underappreciate the extent to which policy changes affect other people's behavior, and that these mistaken beliefs exert a causal effect on the demand for bad policy. |
主题 | Microeconomics ; Welfare and Collective Choice ; Public Economics ; Taxation |
URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w22916 |
来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States) |
引用统计 | |
资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/580589 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Ernesto Dal Bó,Pedro Dal Bó,Erik Eyster. The Demand for Bad Policy when Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects. 2016. |
条目包含的文件 | ||||||
文件名称/大小 | 资源类型 | 版本类型 | 开放类型 | 使用许可 | ||
w22916.pdf(390KB) | 智库出版物 | 限制开放 | CC BY-NC-SA | 浏览 |
除非特别说明,本系统中所有内容都受版权保护,并保留所有权利。