An Efficiency Approach to the Evaluation of Policy Changes / Stephen Coate.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Coate, Stephen.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7316.

NBER working paper series no. w7316

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

This paper describes an efficiency approach to the evaluation of policy changes. Rather than comparing the utility allocations that arise before and after a policy change is introduced, this approach evaluates a policy change by comparing it with other possible changes which might be made from the status quo. The main merit of the approach is that it is founded on the Pareto criterion rather than on a distributional value judgement. The paper provides a precise statement of the approach and applies it to a number of examples. Some objections to the approach are also anticipated and discussed.

Notes:

Print version record

August 1999.