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Prices and Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Abdelkrim Araar
  • Paolo Verme

Abstract

What is the welfare effect of a price change? This simple question is one of the most relevant and controversial questions in microeconomic theory and one of the main sources of errors in empirical economics. This book returns to this question with the objective of providing a general framework for the use of theoretical contributions in empirical works. Welfare measures and computational methods are compared to test how these choices result in different welfare measurement under different scenarios of price changes. As a rule of thumb and irrespective of parameter choices, welfare measures converge to approximately the same result for price changes below 10 percent. Above this threshold, these measures start to diverge significantly. Budget shares play an important role in explaining such divergence. Single or multiple price changes influence results visibly, whereas the choice of demand system has a surprisingly minor role. Under standard utility assumptions, the Laspeyres and Paasche variations are always the outer bounds of welfare estimates, and the consumer’s surplus is the median estimate. The book also introduces a new simple welfare approximation, clarifies the relation between Taylor’s approximations and the income and substitution effects and provides an example for treating non-linear pricing.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdelkrim Araar & Paolo Verme, 2019. "Prices and Welfare," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 32320, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbpubs:32320
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos & Araar, Abdelkrim & Malásquez, Eduardo A. & Granguillhome Ochoa, Rogelio, 2022. "Competition reform and household welfare: A microsimulation analysis of the telecommunication sector in Ethiopia," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(2).
    3. Aldubyan, Mohammad & Gasim, Anwar, 2021. "Energy price reform in Saudi Arabia: Modeling the economic and environmental impacts and understanding the demand response," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
    4. Saelim, Supawan, 2019. "Carbon tax incidence on household consumption: Heterogeneity across socio-economic factors in Thailand," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 159-174.
    5. Nikmatul Khoiriyah & Ratya Anindita & Nuhfil Hanani & Abdul Wahib Muhaimin, 2020. "Animal Food Demand in Indonesia: A Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System Approach," AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Economics and Management, vol. 12(2), June.
    6. Abdelkrim Araar & Paolo Verme, 2019. "Prices and welfare: a comparative analysis of measures and computational methods," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1077-1101, October.
    7. Rodriguez Castelan,Carlos & Araar,Abdelkrim & Malasquez Carbonel,Eduardo Alonso & Olivieri,Sergio Daniel & Vishwanath,Tara, 2019. "Distributional Effects of Competition : A Simulation Approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8838, The World Bank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Macroeconomics and Economic Growth - Inflation Poverty Reduction - Inequality Poverty Reduction - Living Standards Macroeconomics and Economic Growth - Consumption;

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

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