======================= HES POSTING ================= 
 
 
In a message dated 97-08-05 22:18:46 EDT, you write: 
 
>i)  Some today are critical of putting policy choices in the language of, 
>say, cost-benefit analysis. If Taylor's remarks are correct, though, might 
>we not use contingent valuation (for example) simply as part of our 
>"stock-in-trade"--safely use CBA as a metaphor, in other words, without 
>implying that policy questions are reducible to economics? 
 
I wish to react to the claim that "some today are critical of putting 
policy 
choices in the language of ...cost-benefit analysis."   Doesn't it depend 
on 
what the choice that has to be made is actually about.  For example 
distinguish two cases.  Case A, a girl falls down a ditch and is having 
trouble breathing.  The public watches the event and its aftermath on TV.  
I 
suspect that anyone who proposes a cost-benefit analysis of whether or not 
to 
save her or let her die would be stoned out of the community.  Here most of 
the public and most economists (??) would find c/b analysis some offensive. 
 
When, however, the issue is whether to lower a permissible standard 
affecting 
the outpouring of a toxic emission, then the extra benefits and the extra 
costs should be calculated.  Let us call this case B.  I do not think 
thatthe 
application of c/b in this context of saving statistical lives would raise 
howls of protest. 
 
Is this difference something that has a moral or ethical basis?  Is this 
distinction one that should inform our understanding of economic debates? 
 
L. Moss 
Babson College 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]