Contra Cost-Benefit
Via Yglesias, here's a very intriguing article arguing that cost-benefit analysis doesn't actually make much sense for some environmental issues. (It's authored by by Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling.)
I'm not sure I'm persuaded by every element in their argument but, it does makes some extremely important points. For example, on the much-debated subject of "discounting":
Second, the use of discounting systematically and improperly downgrades the importance of environmental regulation. While discounting makes sense in comparing alternative financial investments, it cannot reasonably be used to make a choice between preventing harms to present generations and preventing similar harms to future generations. Nor can discounting reasonably be used even to make a choice between harms to the current generation; choosing between preventing an automobile fatality and a cancer death does not turn on prevailing rates of return on financial investments. In addition, discounting tends to trivialize long-term environmental risks, minimizing the very real threat our society faces from potential catastrophes and irreversible environmental harms, such as those posed by global warming and nuclear waste.
If you're into environmental economics, it really is worth a look.
The Geography of Poverty
More like this please. It's pretty well known that official measures of poverty are inaccurate relics. Among other problems, they do things like this:
For the federal government, the concept of poverty is simple. If a typical family of four earns less than $21,100 a year, they're poor. If a single working woman makes less than $10,787, she's in poverty. It doesn't matter whether these people live in Omaha, Neb., where the average apartment rents for $600 a month, or in New York City, where a similar apartment costs $1,600 a month.
Conventional poverty measurements systematically discriminate against places with a high cost of living -- and that usually means cities. So it's encouraging to see New York seize the initiative to develop a more realistic assessment.
As the Christian Science Monitor reports:
New York's new poverty measurement takes into account rent, utility fees, food costs, clothing costs, and also includes other benefits for low-income families and individuals like Section 8 housing vouchers and food stamps. The change is expected to boost the city's poverty rate from 19 percent to 23 percent. That would mean 30,000 more people would qualify for assistance programs.
That's exactly as it should be. We need a more accurate accounting of the true costs (as well as the available benefits) of living in cities.
