Well-Being Analysis vs. Cost-Benefit Analysis

Bronsteen, John; Buccafusco, Christopher; Masur, Jonathan S.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1989202

Cited by 34 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Jensen (2001) pointed out some possible ways to resolve the contradictions in the two competing indicators of business success: cost maximization and social well-being. Bronsteen, Buccafusco and Masur (2013) examined a new dimension of business success; this is the "well-being analysis", considered an alternative to the "cost-benefit analysis".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business Success of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Russia and Social Responsibility of Managers

Pletnev

Barkhatov

2016

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

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This article introduces the authors' approach to the study of business success factors for small and medium sized enterprises. The approach is based on the currently dominant practice of estimating the success of an enterprise as its ability to produce profit. The authors have analyzed the success criteria used by managers of Russian small and medium sized enterprises based on the survey carried out among the managers of 212 small and medium sized enterprises in the period of September -November, 2014, and described the correlation between the business success of small and medium sized enterprises and the level of their managers' social responsibility. To estimate the social responsibility, the authors used the values of average salaries and the proportion between the salaries of average executives and those of their managers. Hence, a nonlinear relation has been established between the business success of a small and medium sized enterprises and the manager's social responsibility.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Business Success of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Russia and Social Responsibility of Managers

Pletnev

Barkhatov

2016

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

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“…Some thoughtful scholars have proposed that we replace CBA entirely with a method that expresses both sides of the ledger in common units of "well-being" (e.g. Adler 2012; Bronsteen et al 2013). Despite our interest in those ideas, "well-being analysis" may be too radical to be accepted by the federal and state regulatory agencies, which have advanced CBA methods over several decades, and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which has an abiding interest in traditional CBA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward the usable recognition of individual benefits and costs in regulatory analysis and governance

Cranor

Finkel

2016

Regulation & Governance

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Regulatory agencies in the United States and Europe have well‐deserved reputations for fixating on the total benefits and costs of proposed and final regulatory actions, without doing any more than anecdotally mentioning the subpopulations and individuals who may bear disproportionate costs or reap disproportionate benefits. This is especially true on the “cost” side of the cost–benefit ledger, where analysts exert little effort to even inform decisionmakers and the public that the costs of regulations might be distributed either regressively or progressively. Many scholars and advocates have observed that regulation can increase the efficiency of market outcomes, but caution about its untoward (or suboptimal) effects on equity. Here, we argue that without considering distributional information about costs and benefits, regulatory policies in fact can also cause violence to notions of efficiency, for two reasons: (i) society cannot hope to approach Pareto‐efficient outcomes without identifying those who must lose so that others can gain more; and (ii) because the harm experienced by involuntary risks and by imposed regulatory costs is likely non‐linear in its magnitude (at the individual level), efficiency is, in fact, a strong function of the shape of the distribution of these effects. This article reviews evidence about the distribution of regulatory costs and benefits, describes how agencies fail to incorporate readily available distributional information, and sketches a vision for how they could analyze costs and benefits to promote more efficient regulatory choices and outcomes.

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“…Plausible alternative judgments: Recently, some scholars have proposed that “well‐being analysis” could supplement or supplant cost‐benefit analysis . WBA could express both dollar costs and longevity, health, or environmental benefits in common units of welfare or “happiness,” although this would require psychometric research to much better estimate the average (and range) of how citizens value changes in wealth and in nonmarket goods like health and visibility.…”

Section: A Guided Tour Through Inevitable Value Judgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demystifying Evidence‐Based Policy Analysis by Revealing Hidden Value‐Laden Constraints

Finkel¹

2018

Hastings Center Report

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Consider any choice that affects some social policy. A decision that considers evidence will, at its heart, contain some kind of explicit or implicit "because" statement: "We are doing X because the evidence says Y." But can evidence ever truly speak for itself, in the sense of being reducible to objective utterances that are either correct or in need of correction? Before answering, consider what you'd prefer. Would you rather receive evidence that was free of any value judgments imposed by human actors, that was laden with value judgments that you agree with, or laden with value judgments that you disagree with? The central assertion of this essay is that, throughout policy analysis but especially in assessments of the costs and benefits of regulating versus encouraging new technologies (cost-benefit analysis, or CBA), the first possibility above is a mirage, and the second and third are self-contradictory. Instead, we are overwhelmingly confronted with a fourth possibility: we receive evidence that appears to be (or is deliberately touted as) value neutral but is suffused with hidden value judgments. In the second part of this essay, entitled "A Guided Tour through Inevitable Value Judgments," I identify in a systematic way approximately sixty-five value judgments that are routinely (in some cases, invariably) made in CBA, but that are kept hidden. For each judgment, I discuss its genesis as it is most commonly invoked in CBA, explain how it is hidden in plain sight, and offer one or more value judgments that could be made instead of or in addition to the conventional one. The alternative judgments highlight the width of the spectrum of reasonable conclusions an analyst could reach merely by substituting other judgments for the ones currently embedded. Bringing hidden value judgments to light is doubly valuable. First, it allows discussion to ensue on a level playing field; instead of conclusory statements about what the evidence says, transparency permits statements taking the form of "when channeled through these value judgments, the evidence says this." Perhaps more importantly, transparency about value judgments permits participants in the discussions to offer interpretations of evidence contingent on there being different value judgments chosen at one or more points in the analysis, interpretations that may suggest that alternative course(s) of action are preferable to the one being championed.

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Well-Being Analysis vs. Cost-Benefit Analysis

Cited by 34 publications

References 16 publications

Business Success of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Russia and Social Responsibility of Managers

Business Success of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Russia and Social Responsibility of Managers

Toward the usable recognition of individual benefits and costs in regulatory analysis and governance

Demystifying Evidence‐Based Policy Analysis by Revealing Hidden Value‐Laden Constraints

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