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| Type | Working Paper |
| Scope | Discipline-based scholarship |
| Title | Politicians’ social welfare criteria: an experiment with German legislators |
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| Institution | University of Zurich |
| Series Name | CESifo Working Papers |
| Number | 10329 |
| ISSN | 2364‐1428 |
| Number of Pages | 31 |
| Date | 2023 |
| Abstract Text | Much economic analysis derives policy recommendations based on social welfare criteria intended to model the preferences of a policy maker. Yet, little is known about policy maker’s normative views in a way amenable to this use. In a behavioral experiment, we elicit German legislators’ social welfare criteria unconfounded by political economy constraints. When resolving preference conflicts across individuals, politicians place substantially more importance on least-favored than on most-favored alternatives, contrasting with both common aggregation mechanisms and the equal weighting inherent in utilitarianism and the Kaldor-Hicks criterion. When resolving preference conflicts within individuals, we find no support for the commonly used “long-run criterion” which insists that choices merit intervention only if the lure of immediacy may bias intertemporal choice. Politicians’ and the public’s social welfare criteria largely coincide. |
| Official URL | https://www.cesifo.org/en/publications/2023/working-paper/politicians-social-welfare-criteria-experiment-german-legislators-0 |
| Other Identification Number | merlin-id:24277 |
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| Keywords | Positive welfare economics, politicians, preference aggregation, paternalism |