How Well Do Governments Assess the Distributional Impacts of Policy?

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Cecot, Caroline; Hahn, Robert W.; Imamoglu, Eslem
• 署名单位: George Washington University; Carnegie Mellon University; University of Oxford; Georgetown University
• 刊物名称: REGULATION & GOVERNANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1748-5983; 1748-5991
• DOI: 10.1111/rego.70122
• 发表日期: 2026-02-19
• 关键词: benefit-cost analysis; comparative governance; distributional analysis; equity; regulation; regulatory impact analysis; BENEFIT-COST-ANALYSIS; US; redistribution; weights; energy

摘要

Policy makers are showing increased interest in understanding the impacts of public policies on subgroups of the population. We provide the first cross-regional comparison of distributional analyses by examining 907 benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union from 2016 through 2020. In these regions, we find almost no quantification of net benefits for a population subgroup (2 US BCAs, 0 UK BCAs, and 1 EU BCA). Distributional weights were also rarely used (5 UK BCAs, none elsewhere). Moreover, when distributional weights were used in the United Kingdom, they were used mainly to evaluate policies involving income transfers between low- and high-income groups rather than in broader regulatory analyses. We consider possible explanations for the lack of quantification of net benefits by subgroup along with the implications of our findings for conducting distributional analysis.JEL Classification: K23, K32, Q58, I0