This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2013
  5. Aggregating Local Preferences to Guide Marginal Policy Adjustments

Aggregating Local Preferences to Guide Marginal Policy Adjustments

  • Daniel J. Benjamin
  • Ori Heffetz
  • Miles S. Kimball
  • Nichole Szembrot
American Economic Review
vol. 103, no. 3, May 2013
(pp. 605-10)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

We propose a social choice rule for aggregating preferences elicited from surveys into a marginal adjustment of policy from the status quo. The mechanism is: (i) symmetric in its treatment of survey respondents; (ii) ordinal, using only the orientation of respondents' indifference surfaces; (iii) local, using only preferences in the neighborhood of current policy; and (iv) what we call "first-order strategy-proof," making the gains from misreporting preferences second order. The mechanism could be applied to guide policy based on how policy affects responses to subjective well-being surveys.

Citation

Benjamin, Daniel J., Ori Heffetz, Miles S. Kimball, and Nichole Szembrot. 2013. "Aggregating Local Preferences to Guide Marginal Policy Adjustments." American Economic Review, 103 (3): 605-10. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.605

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • E61 Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
  • I31 General Welfare