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Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies

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  • Carneiro, Pedro

    (University College London)

  • Hansen, Karsten T.

    (Northwestern University)

  • Heckman, James J.

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

This paper summarizes our recent research on evaluating the distributional consequences of social programs. This research advances the economic policy evaluation literature beyond estimating assorted mean impacts to estimate distributions of outcomes generated by different policies and determine how those policies shift persons across the distributions of potential outcomes produced by them. Our approach enables analysts to evaluate the distributional effects of social programs without invoking the “Veil of Ignorance” assumption often used in the literature in applied welfare economics. Our methods determine which persons are affected by a given policy, where they come from in the ex-ante outcome distribution and what their gains are. We apply our methods to analyze two proposed policy reforms in American education. These reforms benefit the middle class and not the poor.

Suggested Citation

  • Carneiro, Pedro & Hansen, Karsten T. & Heckman, James J., 2002. "Removing the Veil of Ignorance in Assessing the Distributional Impacts of Social Policies," IZA Discussion Papers 453, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp453
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Policy Evaluation; Distributional Effects; Social programs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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