Framing, Information, and Welfare

Abstract

Consumers often face an overwhelming amount of information when deciding between products, and one of the primary policymaking tools available to improve their informativeness is the framing of this information. We introduce a general theoretical approach that characterizes when one frame is revealed to provide robustly higher welfare than another. Because it is testable, adaptable, and both necessary and sufficient, our condition determines both whether frames are robustly welfare ranked in a particular data set and the overall proportion of data sets in which frames can be so ranked.

Keywords: Framing effects, behavioral welfare economics, revealed preferences, incomplete information