Welfare Analysis: Bridging the Partial and General Equilibrium Divide for Policy Analysis

Date

2018-03-25

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Farrow, Scott; Rose, Adam; Welfare Analysis: Bridging the Partial and General Equilibrium Divide for Policy Analysis; Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp 67-83, 25 March, 2018; https://doi.org/10.1017/bca.2017.29

Rights

This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Subjects

Abstract

Advances in theoretical and computable general equilibrium modeling brought their conceptual foundations more in line with standard microeconomic constructs. This reduced the theoretical gap between welfare measurements using a partial or a general equilibrium approach. However, the separation of the partial and general equilibrium literatures lingers in many applications that this manuscript seeks to bridge. The now shared conceptual foundations, the importance of functional specification, the role of common price movements and closure rules are discussed. The continuing stricture in U.S. Government guidelines against including secondary effects in welfare measures is questioned.