Séminaire Microéconomie : Tous les mercredis
Heure : 12h15 – 13h30
Date : 16/10/2024
Salle : 3001

Francesco CAPOZZA (WZB, Berlin) – “Who Should Get Money ? Estimating Welfare Weights in the U.S.”

CV : Evaluating the desirability of a reform typically involves weighing the gains of the winners against the losses of the losers using welfare weights. Welfare weights measure the value that citizens assign to a $1 gain in consumption to individuals. They can capture various normative ideals like utilitarianism and equality of opportunity. What are the welfare weights that citizens assign to individuals in society? We develop
a portable method to elicit welfare weights from general population samples and validate it using two experiments. We find that the general population weights are more progressive than the weights implied by tax
and transfer policies in the U.S., indicating that the general population desires additional redistribution. The general population weights are less progressive than those frequently used in the literature. We explore the implications of these weights for optimal income taxes.

Organisateurs :

Julien COMBE (Pôle d’Economie du CREST)
​​​​​​​​​​​​Yves Le YAOUANQ (Pôle d’Economie du CREST)
​​​​​​​​​Matias NUNEZ (Pôle d’Economie du CREST)

Commanditaires :
CREST