More candidates in the crowded field for the vacancy of Professor in the Public Misunderstanding of Economics. h/t @antoniomele101 ft.com/content/acfc7f…
Having read it, I think this is a great piece of work, and the snappy comedy writing in the paper should not detract from that.
['the paper' above means the FT, not the study.] Public resources, derived from taxes, are scarce. Hard choices have to be made. Some attempt has to be made to quantify the benefits to different forms of expenditure to make sure that money is spent on the right things.
The paper uses two sound methods. One is to survey people and ask them how much they might pay themselves to keep an amenity open for them. Not going to be perfect, and not claimed to be by the authors. Hence corroboration sought.
Second method: see how amenity improves self reported well being; compare how money improves the same. Derive monetary value of amenity using the two.
This kind of work necessarily goes on across all the public sector. Planning. Infrastructure. Health spending ['qualies']. Defence [£ per kill or kill prevented]. The scorn derived from ignorance here is an echo of the @JananGanesh column in the same paper last week.
This would be a great topic for @TimHarford in his more or less program, although I suspect he has probably already done it.
