Chap 6-POL 211 (Fall 2019)

Chap 6
                                          Assessing Alternatives






Critics of the use of efficiency as a criteria argue that one important constraint is the fact that benefits and costs are not equally distributed among the population. Often, the benefits of policies such as agricultural subsidies or subsidized tuition for college students go to particular groups in the population, but all tax payers bear the costs. Social wellbeing is composed of 2 factors, economic and equity. Critics talk about economic efficiency as a positive or objective analysis and it takes the distribution of income and resulting prices as given unless there are market failures. Second factor is equity of fairness of the distribution of these goods and services. Many economic policies are designed to lessen the unequal distribution of income arising from the market economy. Equity issues thus becomes extremely important if the costs and benefits are not equally distributed over time.


   Let’s say that the intertemporal equity concern can be looked at from the perspective of the initial distribution of income or from the perspective of gainers and losers; even though taxpayers bear the cost, we unequally get the benefits, meaning benefits are not equally distributed over time. It seems like if the more we work and the more taxes you pay, the less benefits you are allowed to. Benefits are not equally distributed among us and the hard working population. When we are hard workers apply for certain government goods, the fact that we pay our taxes, work hard to have a better decent life, the least likely we will get any benefits from the government. I believe that’s why certain people do not worry too much about getting an education and getting a decent job, because it’s like the more you succeed, the more you get punish for doing it.



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