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Empirical Demand and Welfare Analysis

Objective

Measurement of consumer welfare is central to economic evaluations. It underlies calculation of price-indices, formulation of tax policies, and environmental and industrial regulation. But existing measurement methods rely on restrictive assumptions about consumer preferences, leading to potentially incorrect conclusions regarding policy-impacts. The proposed project aims to make fundamental contributions to empirical welfare analysis by developing nonparametric approaches, which would avoid such assumptions and thus produce reliable welfare estimates from micro-data. The emphasis will be on welfare-evaluation of price/quality changes in the under-researched but common real-life setting of discrete-choice, e.g. the impact of tuition subsidies for college entrants, fare-hikes for passengers and access to new channels for TV viewers. The project will cover (i) discrete choice with multinomial/ordered/non-exclusive alternatives, (ii) random coefficient choice-models, (iii) settings where one’s choice affects one’s peers’ utilities, and (iv) dynamic choice under uncertainty such as durable-purchase. Welfare analyses in situations (ii)-(iv) are previously unexplored problems and represent ambitious undertakings. Situation (i) has been analyzed only under strong, unsubstantiated assumptions, like quasilinear preferences and extreme valued errors. The key insight driving the project is that welfare calculations require less information than what is needed to identify underlying preference parameters. The project will also develop methods to overcome common data problems like interval-reporting and endogeneity of income. The theoretical results will be complemented by software codes in Stata/R which can be readily used by practitioners. Given the ubiquity of welfare analysis in economic applications and its use in non-academic settings such as merger-analysis, damage calculations, etc., the project is likely to have a substantial impact both in and beyond the academia.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2015-CoG

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Host institution

THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 426 418,00
Address
TRINITY LANE THE OLD SCHOOLS
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom

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Region
East of England East Anglia Cambridgeshire CC
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 426 418,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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