Does the choice of numeraire matter in cost-benefit analysis?

• 成果类型: Editorial Material
• 署名作者: Johansson, PO
• 署名单位: Stockholm School of Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 489-493
• 关键词: cost-benefit analysis; numeraire; social welfare weights

摘要

Brekke [Brekke (1997) Journal of Public Economics 64, 117-123] claims that using money as the numeraire in cost-benefit analysis is systematically favourable to those who value money the least, relative to alternative numeraires. This note attempts to show that the outcome of a properly undertaken cost-benefit analysis is independent of the choice of numeraire. However, since the marginal social utility of income (or, say, an environmental good) is unobservable, one faces a formidable problem in assessing the social profitability of a project which affects more than a single person. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.