Politicians' social welfare criteria - An experiment with German legislators

Sandro Ambuehl, Sebastian Blesse, Philipp Doerrenberg, Christoph Feldhaus and Axel Ockenfels

No 23-013, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Positive welfare economics; politicians; preference aggregation; paternalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Politicians' Social Welfare Criteria: An Experiment with German Legislators (2023)
Working Paper: Politicians’ Social Welfare Criteria – An Experiment with German Legislators (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:23013

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