SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 189 
costs, but particularly the benefits, are far more difficult to 
ascertain and measure than in the case of private investments. 
This follows from the very natures of the firm and the.govern- 
ment and from the kinds of enterprise that a government is 
likely to engage in in a mixed economy. 
When a firm contemplates an investment it will be con- 
cerned very predominantly with the increase in the salable 
product or the decrease in the operating costs that will result 
from it. Both of these are readily expressible in monetary 
terms and the conversion from physical units to economic value 
is relatively easy because prices for the commodities at issue 
can be obtained, with some degree of haziness and extrapolation 
to be sure, from the free markets on which those commodities 
are traded. 
A government’s interests and the results in expects from 
its investments are quite different. Indeed, the greater the 
extent to which the kind of appraisal that a firm uses is ade- 
quate, the more likely is the government of a mixed economy 
to leave the undertaking to the private sector. The kinds of 
results in which a government is interested can be outlined. as 
follows : 
1. Frequently government enterprises do produce salable 
products, comparable to those of private enterprises. This is 
likely to be the case where the product is a « natural mono- 
poly » or is particularly important to the health and safety of 
the community or to the operation of the government itself. 
2. In recent years, especially, governments have entered 
fields characterized by significant economies of scale, to gain 
which requires larger commitments of capital than private indi- 
viduals are able or willing to mobilize. 
3. The government is likely to undertake the production 
of goods for which there is a marked discrepancy between mar- 
ket price and social value, or for which“a private enterprise 
51 Dorfman - pag. 3