Re: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Alypius Skinner
Does anyone know how often CBA is actually used in making policy? What percent of the federal budget (or state or local) has been determined by CBA?Cyril Morong I'm sure it's used frequently. It's probablyapplied something like this: "what's the minimum amount of

Re: Median Voter, Welfare State and World Power

2003-02-13 Thread Alypius Skinner
Bullshit or not? Assumption 1: There is a trade off between welfare state spending and military spending. Assumption 2: The more you spend on military, the more a gov't can project power abroad. Assumption 3: The Median European voter prefers more welfare state than Americans, who

RE: Fw: why Iraq? here's one theory

2003-02-13 Thread Grey Thomas
Bill says the whole (too long) report is nonsense. I mostly agree, BUT with a caveat. If switching to petro Euros has no affect on foreign investment into the US, then I'd agree the report is useless. However, if the switch to Euros, or the war in Iraq, or a feeling that US assets are overpriced,

RE: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Driessnack, John
In defense you can say that almost all of the weapons related spending (Procurement and RDTE budget almost half of the budget when you consider the spare purchases) is accomplished having gone through some CBA in the process of deciding the approach to develop, procure, and then maintain

A visiting Slovak in April May

2003-02-13 Thread Grey Thomas
Hi folks, hope some of you can help me. My friend and colleague, Jan Oravec from Slovakia, has received an Eisenhower Fellowship for a couple months, end of March to end of May. These fellowships allow bright young guys to network in the US. He's the President of the F.A. Hayek Foundation

RE: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Warnick, Walt
Oneproblem with applying CBA to policy formulation isensuring reliability and objectivity.Too often, CBA is manipulatedforpredetermined policy positions.EPA once produceda Regulatory Impact Analysis that contended that benefits fromthe phaseout of CFCsare $8 trillion to $32 trillion. In

re: lott

2003-02-13 Thread pmccann
please disregard the previous message, it was not written by me Patrick McCann

Re: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Bryan Caplan
If I were teaching intermediate micro, I think I would begin by asking students why they consume less of x when its price rises. Presumably most would say that they would switch to other products. Then I would ask them to consider a world with only ONE good. Obviously with only one good, price

RE: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Fred Childress
On Thu, 13 Feb 2003 15:52:43 -0500, William Dickens [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Any CBA is better than no CBA - - even a badly skewed one. Its the same argument for formalizing theory in economics. It makes clear what your assumptions and logic are and makes it easy to identify areas of agreement

RE: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread William Dickens
Fred, You completely misunderstand my point. If a cost benefit analysis is presented it makes very clear what the assumptions are that lead to the policy conclusions. Thus any debate of the question is going to be much better informed and much more closely focused on the issues that matter.

Re: Cost benefit analysis

2003-02-13 Thread Fred Childress
From: William Dickens Fred, You completely misunderstand my point. If a cost benefit analysis is presented it makes very clear what the assumptions are that lead to the policy conclusions. Bill, I don't think I completely misunderstood. I do apologize, however, as I allow myself to