Project Evaluation with Democratic Decision-making: What Does Cost-benefit Analysis Really Measure?

Karine Nyborg

No 08/2014, Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics

Abstract: It is often argued that projects involving public good changes should be chosen on the basis of monetary valuation and cost-benefit analysis (CBA). In democratic project selection processes, however,decision-makers cannot generally interpret CBA as measuring projects’ social welfare effects.The reason is partly that decision-makers’views of the good society differ –that is, they typically do not hold the same social welfare function – and partly because separating efficiency anddistribution is even less straightforward in democratic than in dictatorial decision-making processes.

Keywords: Environmental cost-benefit analysis; ethics; democratic decision-making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 D31 D61 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2014-07-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-ore and nep-ppm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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Journal Article: Project evaluation with democratic decision-making: What does cost–benefit analysis really measure? (2014)
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