OpportunityCard
A proposal to let people prove a low income to a seller and get a lower price. I've worked on it on and off since 2008. This page collects the public papers, posts and discussion in one place.
The idea
Governments know people's incomes. Sellers mostly don't, so they decide who gets a discount using cruder signals: age, student status, location, purchase history. An OpportunityCard would let a customer who chooses to certify that their income is below a threshold. The seller gets a yes-or-no answer, not tax records, and can offer a posted discount to people who show the card.
The appeal is that it could reduce consumption inequality through markets rather than through taxes and spending. The catch is that the welfare effects are theoretically ambiguous. A verified low-income group can expand trade and reduce the hassles and deliberately worse "budget" versions firms use to keep better-off buyers from taking discounts. It can also let firms extract more surplus or raise the standard price. That's why I've argued for testing it before anything larger.
Where it stands now
The OpportunityCard, ten years on A reassessment and research agenda (July 2026). The verification tools the 2015 proposal lacked now exist, and related discounts already run at scale, such as UK social broadband tariffs checked against benefit records and Brazil's automatic enrollment in its electricity social tariff. My current view: pin down the remaining theoretical problem and audit the available administrative data before anyone proposes a general rollout.The technical appendix covers the literature on third-degree price discrimination and the empirical openings in more detail.
Papers and posts
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The Government May Want to Encourage Price-Discrimination by Income
University of Essex, Department of Economics Discussion Paper No. 771. The short academic statement of the idea, with a proposed pilot field experiment.
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Should we help companies tailor prices to your wage packet?
The Conversation. With Owen Southam, with contributions from Rasif Alakbarov and Harry Masters. The version for a general audience, built around a bus-stop example.
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OpportunityCard: an example
A worked bus-fare example showing when income-based fares raise total welfare by filling more seats, and when they misallocate seats to people who value them less. With Owen Southam, Harry Masters and Rasif Alakbarov.
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The OpportunityCard, ten years on
What changed since 2015, the current evidence, a research agenda, and rules a responsible scheme would need.
Discussion by others
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Redistribution at the cash register
ABB, NONV (Substack), in a "31 Days of Policy" series. Walks through the proposal and its practical hurdles, such as sellers needing everyone to show a card, and income being a rough proxy for willingness to pay. Concludes it's worth experimenting with.
If you've written about the OpportunityCard, or know of discussion I've missed, please tell me and I'll add it here.
Taking it further
I'd like to hear from people who could take this further: theorists working on price discrimination with verified group membership, anyone with access to data on social tariffs or benefit-linked discounts, and people working on surveillance-pricing rules or digital ID. I can share the organized project archive and help scope an extension or an empirical study. Email daaronr@gmail.com.