IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2105.08689.html

Incorporating Social Welfare in Program-Evaluation and Treatment Choice

Author

Listed:
  • Debopam Bhattacharya
  • Tatiana Komarova

Abstract

The econometric literature on treatment-effects typically takes functionals of outcome-distributions as `social welfare' and ignores program-impacts on unobserved utilities. We show how to incorporate aggregate utility within econometric program-evaluation and optimal treatment-targeting for a heterogenous population. In the practically important setting of discrete-choice, under unrestricted preference-heterogeneity and income-effects, the indirect-utility distribution becomes a closed-form functional of average demand. This enables nonparametric cost-benefit analysis of policy-interventions and their optimal targeting based on planners' redistributional preferences. For ordered/continuous choice, utility-distributions can be bounded. Our methods are illustrated with Indian survey-data on private-tuition, where income-paths of usage-maximizing subsidies differ significantly from welfare-maximizing ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Debopam Bhattacharya & Tatiana Komarova, 2021. "Incorporating Social Welfare in Program-Evaluation and Treatment Choice," Papers 2105.08689, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2105.08689
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.08689
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lee, Ying-Ying & Bhattacharya, Debopam, 2019. "Applied welfare analysis for discrete choice with interval-data on income," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 211(2), pages 361-387.
    2. Ahmad, Ehtisham & Stern, Nicholas, 1984. "The theory of reform and indian indirect taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 259-298, December.
    3. Debopam Bhattacharya, 2015. "Nonparametric Welfare Analysis for Discrete Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 617-649, March.
    4. Bhattacharya, Debopam & Dupas, Pascaline, 2012. "Inferring welfare maximizing treatment assignment under budget constraints," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 167(1), pages 168-196.
    5. Banks, James & Blundell, Richard & Lewbel, Arthur, 1996. "Tax Reform and Welfare Measurement: Do We Need Demand System Estimation?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(438), pages 1227-1241, September.
    6. Debopam Bhattacharya, 2018. "Empirical welfare analysis for discrete choice: Some general results," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 571-615, July.
    7. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    8. Bhattacharya, D. & Dupas, P. & Kanaya, S., 2018. "Demand and Welfare Analysis in Discrete Choice Models under Social Interactions," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1885, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    9. Mehtabul Azam, 2016. "Private Tutoring: Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 739-761, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maitra, Pushkar & Mitra, Sandip & Mookherjee, Dilip & Visaria, Sujata, 2022. "Evaluating the distributive effects of a micro-credit intervention," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Ganesh Karapakula, 2022. "An Axiomatic Framework for Cost-Benefit Analysis," Papers 2207.13033, arXiv.org.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2005:i:4:p:1-8 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Urzúa, Carlos M., 2004. "The Ahmad-Stern approach revisited: Variants and an application to Mexico," EGAP Working Papers 2004-05, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México.
    3. Rinaldo Brau & Massimo Florio, 2004. "Privatisations as price reforms: Evaluating consumers' welfare changes in the U.K," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 75-76, pages 109-133.
    4. Carlos M. Urzúa, 2005. "The Ahmad-Stern approach revisited," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(4), pages 1-8.
    5. Debopam Bhattacharya, 2021. "The Empirical Content of Binary Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 457-474, January.
    6. David Madden, 2015. "The Poverty Effects Of A ‘Fat‐Tax’ In Ireland," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 104-121, January.
    7. Massimo Florio & Rinaldo Brau, 2001. "Privatisations as price reforms: an analysis of consumers' welfare change in the U.K," Departmental Working Papers 2001-19, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    8. Debopam Bhattacharya & Pascaline Dupas & Shin Kanaya, 2024. "Demand and Welfare Analysis in Discrete Choice Models with Social Interactions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(2), pages 748-784.
    9. Tirachini, Alejandro & Proost, Stef, 2021. "Transport taxes and subsidies in developing countries: The effect of income inequality aversion," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    10. Firpo, Sergio & Galvao, Antonio F. & Kobus, Martyna & Parker, Thomas & Rosa-Dias, Pedro, 2025. "Loss aversion and the welfare ranking of policy interventions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 252(PB).
    11. Jeni Klugman, 2007. "Ethiopia : Explaining Food Price Inflation," World Bank Publications - Reports 19539, The World Bank Group.
    12. Andrej Cupák & Peter Tóth, 2017. "Measuring the Efficiency of VAT reforms: Evidence from Slovakia," Working and Discussion Papers WP 6/2017, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    13. Peter Tóth & Andrej Cupák & Marian Rizov, 2021. "Measuring the efficiency of VAT reforms: a demand system simulation approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 73(3), pages 1218-1243.
    14. Charles Gauthier & Sebastiaan Maes & Raghav Malhotra, 2023. "Consumer Welfare Under Individual Heterogeneity," Papers 2303.01231, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2025.
    15. Olivier Bargain, 2017. "Welfare analysis and redistributive policies," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 393-419, December.
    16. Abdelkrim Araar & Paolo Verme, 2019. "Prices and Welfare," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-17423-1, January.
    17. Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Luchini & Erik Schokkaert & Carine Van de Voorde, 2012. "Évaluation des politiques de santé : pour une prise en compte équitable des intérêts des populations," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 455(1), pages 11-36.
    18. John Creedy, 2009. "An Approximation For The Optimal Linear Income Tax Rate," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 224-236, September.
    19. David Coady, 2006. "The Welfare Returns to Finer Targeting: The Case of The Progresa Program in Mexico," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(2), pages 217-239, May.
    20. Coady, David, 2001. "An evaluation of the distributional power of PROGRESA's cash transfers in Mexico," FCND discussion papers 117, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2105.08689. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.