1. Evaluation of urban road investments-- a comment.
- Author
-
Gwilliam, K. M. and Nash, C. A.
- Subjects
ROADS ,PUBLIC finance ,ROADS -- Economic aspects ,TAXATION ,PROJECT management ,COST effectiveness ,OPPORTUNITY costs ,ECONOMISTS - Abstract
The article presents authors' comments on the paper "Some Problems in the Evaluation of Urban Road Investments," by M.E. Beesley and A.A. Walters. In the paper Beesley and Walters suggest a procedure for evaluation of urban road projects that differs in some important matters of principle from that developed in connection with the London Transportation Study (LTS), which is widely favored as the appropriate basis for economic evaluation. In considering taxation gain, Beesley and Walters say the argument for including this item as a benefit or cost must be, as is usual in cost benefit analysis, that it reflects a real benefit or cost to society in some sense. They said that on the assumption that some other taxes are reduced to compensate them, one should enter a benefit if the reduction in the marginal misallocation of resources and costs of collection of the reduced taxes offsets the costs of collection and misallocation effects of the taxes on the new road. They said that tracing out the misallocation effects and collection costs would be immensely complicated and thus, from ignorance, one must remain neutral as to whether any benefit exists.
- Published
- 1972
- Full Text
- View/download PDF