IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v11y1999i4p581-595.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forget the weights, who gets the benefits? How to bring a poverty focus to the economic analysis of projects

Author

Listed:
  • David Potts

    (DPPC, University of Bradford, UK)

Abstract

This paper examines the way in which the distributional impact of projects has been treated in the cost-benefit analysis literature. It is suggested that excessive emphasis has been given to the estimation of distribution weights in the context of single figure measures of project worth and that more attention should be paid to estimation of the distribution effects themselves. If projects really are to have some impact on poverty it is important that some attempt is made to measure what that impact is. Such an attempt requires both systematic measurement of direct income effects as well as the possibility of measuring indirect effects where these are expected to be important. An approach is suggested in which direct measurement of income effects can be adjusted using shadow price estimates to determine indirect income effects. The approach is illustrated with the example of a district heating project in the Republic of Latvia. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • David Potts, 1999. "Forget the weights, who gets the benefits? How to bring a poverty focus to the economic analysis of projects," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 581-595.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:11:y:1999:i:4:p:581-595
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1328(199906)11:4<581::AID-JID597>3.0.CO;2-J
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harberger, Arnold C, 1978. "On the Use of Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(2), pages 87-120, April.
    2. Balassa, Bela, 1976. "The 'Effects Method' of Project Evaluation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 38(4), pages 219-231, November.
    3. Amin, Galal A., 1978. "Project appraisal and income distribution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 139-152, February.
    4. Balassa, Bela, 1977. "The 'Effects Method' of Project Evaluation Once Again," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 39(4), pages 345-353, November.
    5. Chervel, Marc, 1977. "The Rationale of the Effects Method: A Reply to Bela Balassa," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 39(4), pages 333-344, November.
    6. MacArthur, J. D., 1978. "Appraising the distributional aspects of rural development projects: A Kenya case study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 167-193, February.
    7. Mirrlees, J. A., 1978. "Social benefit-cost analysis and the distribution of income," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 131-138, February.
    8. Stewart, Frances, 1978. "Social cost-benefit analysis in practice: Some reflections in the light of case studies using Little-Mirrlees techniques," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 153-165, February.
    9. Chambers, Robert, 1978. "Project selection for poverty-focused rural development: Simple is optimal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 209-219, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elio H Londero, 2004. "Poverty Targeting Classifications and Distributional Effects," Public Economics 0407012, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anthoff, David & Hepburn, Cameron & Tol, Richard S.J., 2009. "Equity weighting and the marginal damage costs of climate change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 836-849, January.
    2. Disa Asplund, 2019. "Combining discounting and distributional weights. Lessons from climate change economic assessments," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 181-201.
    3. repec:ags:ucdegw:232849 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Udo Ebert, 1986. "Equity and distribution in cost-benefit analysis," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 67-78, December.
    5. Heckman, James, 2001. "Accounting for Heterogeneity, Diversity and General Equilibrium in Evaluating Social Programmes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 654-699, November.
    6. Martin, Will, 2021. "Tools for measuring the full impacts of agricultural interventions," IFPRI-MCC technical papers 2, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Maria Börjesson & Jonas Eliasson, 2019. "Should values of time be differentiated?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(3), pages 357-375, May.
    8. Kverndokk, Snorre & Rose, Adam, 2008. "Equity and Justice in Global Warming Policy," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 135-176, October.
    9. John Piggott, 1982. "The Social Marginal Valuation of Income: Australian Estimates from Government Behaviour," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 58(1), pages 92-99, March.
    10. Jason Shogren, 1998. "A Political Economy in an Ecological Web," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(3), pages 557-570, April.
    11. Chisari, Omar O. & Rodríguez-Pardina, Martín, 1998. "Algunos determinantes de la inversión en sectores de infraestructura en la Argentina," Series Históricas 7445, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    12. Asplund, Disa & Eliasson, Jonas, 2016. "Does uncertainty make cost-benefit analyses pointless?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 195-205.
    13. Acland, Daniel J. & Greenberg, David H., 2023. "Distributional weighting and welfare/equity tradeoffs: a new approach," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 68-92, March.
    14. Moshirian, Fariborz & Tian, Xuan & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Wenrui, 2021. "Stock market liberalization and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 985-1014.
    15. Bas (B.) Jacobs & Rick (F.) van der Ploeg, 2017. "Should Pollution Taxes Be Targeted At Income Redistribution?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-070/VI, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Eliasson, Jonas & Savemark, Christian & Franklin, Joel, 2020. "The impact of land use effects in infrastructure appraisal," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 262-276.
    17. Robert W. Hahn & Robert D. Metcalfe, 2021. "Efficiency and Equity Impacts of Energy Subsidies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1658-1688, May.
    18. Tom Burns & Ewa Roszkowska, 2009. "A social procedural approach to the Pareto optimization problematique: Part II. Institutionalized procedures and their limitations," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 43(5), pages 805-832, September.
    19. Nurmi, Väinö & Ahtiainen, Heini, 2018. "Distributional Weights in Environmental Valuation and Cost-benefit Analysis: Theory and Practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 217-228.
    20. Jacobs, Bas & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2019. "Redistribution and pollution taxes with non-linear Engel curves," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 198-226.
    21. Udo Ebert, 2007. "Redistributional Preference in Environmental Policy," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 63(4), pages 548-562, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:11:y:1999:i:4:p:581-595. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.