Benefit-cost in a Benevolent Society

Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara

Abstract

How should benefit-cost analysis account for the value that benevolent individuals place on other people's pleasure from public goods? When adding up the benefits to be compared with costs, should we sum the private valuations, the altruistic valuations, or something else? This paper proposes a partial answer and offers some suggestions for benefit-cost practitioners.