IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jpamgt/v7y1987i2p246-263.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing preferences in cost-benefit analysis: Reflections on rural water supply evaluation in haiti

Author

Listed:
  • Duncan Macrae
  • Dale Whittington

Abstract

This article examines an area of cost-benefit methodology which has come under increasing philosophical scrutiny in recent years: the appropriate treatment of individuals' preferences. We illustrate some of the difficulties involved in assessing preferences in the context of a concrete example: the evaluation of a rural water supply project in southern Haiti. Four problems in the application of cost-benefit principles are discussed: (1) how to count the social value of private water taps connected to homes if they are preferred for prestige reasons, (2) how to assess husbands' preferences concerning the time savings by wives who previously carried water from more distant sources, (3) how to count preferences based on a respondent's desire to support general community welfare, and (4) how to evaluate a water project when people's preferences may change after the new water system is installed. We argue that policy analysis will be improved by presenting philosophical arguments as to why some preferences should be included in the evaluation and others ignored.

Suggested Citation

  • Duncan Macrae & Dale Whittington, 1987. "Assessing preferences in cost-benefit analysis: Reflections on rural water supply evaluation in haiti," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(2), pages 246-263.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:7:y:1987:i:2:p:246-263
    DOI: 10.2307/3323827
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/3323827
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2307/3323827?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Dale Whittington & Duncan Macrae, 1990. "Comment: Judgments about who has standing in cost-benefit analysis," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 536-547.
    2. Ahmed, Hiba, 2000. "The Benefits Of Water Improvement Program To Women: A Literature Review," Staff Paper Series 11567, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.

    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:jpamgt:v:7:y:1987:i:2:p:246-263. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/34787/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.