Behavioral economics provides a rich set of explicit models of non-classical preferences and belief formation which can be used to estimate structural models of decision making. At the same time, experimental approaches allow the researcher to exogenously vary components of the decision making...

Researchers cannot definitively interpret what the framers of the United States Constitution had in mind when they wrote of the general Welfare. Nevertheless, welfare economics can contribute to policy choice in democracies. Specifying social welfare functions enables coherent analysis, by...

"Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices. Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions. Then the certitude of policy analysis is not credible. This paper develops a...