STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE AND DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY EVALUATION: A CRITIQUE

Juan Cordoba and Xiying Liu

Journal of Demographic Economics, 2016, vol. 82, issue 1, 111-138

Abstract: Stochastic dominance (SD) is commonly used to rank income distributions and assess social policies. The literature argues that SD is a robust criterion for policy evaluation because it requires minimal knowledge of the social welfare function. We argue that, on the contrary, SD is not a robust criterion. We do this by carefully introducing microfoundations into a model by Chu and Koo (1990) who use SD to provide support to family-planning programs aiming at reducing the fertility of the poor. We show that fertility restrictions are generally detrimental for both individual and social welfare in spite of the fact that SD holds. Our findings are an application of the Lucas’ Critique.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Stochastic Dominance and Demographic Policy Evaluation: A Critique (2016)
Working Paper: Stochastic dominance and demographic policy evaluation: a critique (2016)
Working Paper: Stochastic Dominance and Demographic Policy Evaluation: A Critique (2013)
Working Paper: Stochastic dominance and demographic policy evaluation: a critique (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:demeco:v:82:y:2016:i:1:p:111-138_3

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Demographic Economics from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().