Study week on the econometric approach to development planning

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1824422792

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-217476

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Study week on the econometric approach to development planning

Place of publication:: Amsterdam [u.a.]

Publisher:: North-Holland Publ. Co. [u.a.]

Year of publication:: 1965

Scope:: XLVII, 1259 S.; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Econometric analysis for assessing the efficacy of public investment / R. Dorman, Harvard University - Cambridge, Mass. - U.S.A.

Collection:: Economics Books

SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 195 ment projects even though it serves adequately for private in- vestment decisions. On the positive side, one should not underestimate how sophisticated government officials and legislators can become in economic matters. It won’t do to say they will never under- stand a technical concept like shadow prices. They already understand very well indeed the parallel concept of a social rate of discount and, though I can’t vouch that they use that very phrase, debate it very intelligently. If the concept of shadow prices for different objectives were introduced in any government it would, in its early years, lead a stormy exist- ence. But pretty soon the responsible officials would learn what 1s at stake and start to debate about what the shadow prices should be rather than what features particular projects should incorporate. This would be a constructive improvement in the decision-making process. Another proposal that comes naturally to an econometri- cian is that projects might be designed from the very beginning to meet certain specified target value for the various objectives that they are intended to serve. In particular the designers might be instructed to meet the specified targets at minimum possible capital cost. This would require a revolutionary change in the whole design procedure because, as inspection of the list of objectives suggests, they are not all of the sort that engineers feel at home with. Formally speaking, the task to be imposed is this: An engineering design is a choice of a vector of specifications. Given this vector, estimating the cost of building a structure that meets them is fairly straight- forward, though it should be mentioned that engineers do not have a proud record as cost predictors. The prediction of physical results is less straightforward because economic and other nonengineering factors have to be taken into account. If the project produces electric power, its annual output will depend on the load-factor which, in turn, depends on the eco- nomic composition of its market. If the project produces irri Dorfman - pag.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Study week on the econometric approach to development planning

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation