The Demand for Bad Policy when Voters Underappreciate Equilibrium Effects
研究发现选民因低估新政策引发的均衡行为变化，可能支持带来直接好处但最终损害福利的政策，反对有直接成本但能促进合作的政策，通过实验室实验验证了这种系统性错误信念对坏政策需求的因果影响。
Most of the political economy literature blames inefficient policies on institutions or politicians’ motives to supply bad policy, but voters may themselves be partially responsible by demanding bad policy. In this article, we posit that voters may systematically err when assessing potential changes in policy by underappreciating how new policies lead to new equilibrium behaviour. This biases voters towards policy changes that create direct benefits—welfare would rise if behaviour were held constant—even if those reforms ultimately reduce welfare because people adjust behaviour. Conversely, voters are biased against policies that impose direct costs even if they induce larger indirect benefits. Using a lab experiment, we find that a majority of subjects vote against policies that, while inflicting direct costs, would help them to overcome social dilemmas and thereby increase welfare. Subjects also support policies that, while producing direct benefits, create social dilemmas and ultimately hurt welfare. Both mistakes arise because subjects fail to fully anticipate the equilibrium effects of new policies. More precisely, we establish that subjects systematically underappreciate the extent to which policy changes will affect the behaviour of other people, and that these mistaken beliefs exert a causal effect on the demand for bad policy.