Selection on Welfare Gains: Experimental Evidence from Electricity Plan Choice

S-Tier
Journal: American Economic Review
Year: 2023
Volume: 113
Issue: 11
Pages: 2937-73

Score contribution per author:

2.681 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We study a problem in which policymakers need to screen self-selected individuals by unobserved heterogeneity in social welfare gains from a policy intervention. In our framework, the marginal treatment effects and marginal treatment responses arise as key statistics to characterize social welfare. We apply this framework to a randomized field experiment on electricity plan choice. Consumers were offered welfare-improving dynamic pricing with randomly assigned take-up incentives. We find that price-elastic consumers—who generate larger welfare gains—are more likely to self-select. Our counterfactual simulations quantify the optimal take-up incentives that exploit observed and unobserved heterogeneity in selection and welfare gains.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:aea:aecrev:v:113:y:2023:i:11:p:2937-73
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-29