Incorporating Social Welfare in Program-Evaluation and Treatment Choice

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bhattacharya, Debopam; Komarova, Tatiana
• 署名单位: University of Cambridge; University of Manchester
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01424
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: income; REFORM

摘要

We introduce a notion of money-metric social welfare for discrete choice under unrestricted heterogeneity and income effects. It is the maximized indirect utility under normalization of the outside option. It also equals the amount of income necessary to achieve a given level of utility, while certain choices are prohibited. We show that the distribution of this quantity is nonparametrically identified as a closed-form functional of average structural demand for the outside option, making it useful for cost-benefit analysis and optimal targeting. An illustration with private tuition subsidies in India shows that the income path of usage-maximizing subsidies differs significantly from welfare-maximizing ones.