Economics
Social Benefits
Social benefits refer to the positive impacts that an economic activity or policy has on society as a whole, beyond the direct benefits to the individuals or organizations involved. These can include improvements in public health, education, infrastructure, and overall quality of life. Social benefits are important considerations in evaluating the overall impact of economic decisions and policies.
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3 Key excerpts on "Social Benefits"
- Caroline L. Dinwiddy, Francis J. Teal(Authors)
- 1996(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Parti Introduction to welfare economics Measuring changes in economic welfare: consumer and producer surplus The object of this book is to consider the general principles underlying social cost-benefit analysis and to discuss the application of those principles to project appraisal and policy evaluation in developing countries. Social cost-benefit analysis is concerned with the evaluation of policies, pro- grammes or projects by governments or public sector agencies. The general procedure for such an analysis is to consider the costs and benefits of a given policy measure - for instance, a tariff reform, a fertiliser subsidy for farmers, the construction of a cement factory or a rural health clinic - and to compare the benefits with the costs. The difficulty of evaluating social costs and benefits will vary with the project: the social value could simply be the real value of the physical inputs and outputs of a proposed manufactur- ing plant, or the costs and benefits may be intangible ones, such as the environmental costs of pollution or the benefits from improved health services. Whatever the problems of evaluation, the underlying principle is the same in all contexts: if the benefits exceed the costs, then the project is deemed socially worthwhile. As a general statement of principle, the view that the benefits from public sector intervention should exceed the costs would appear to be self-evident. Closer consideration, however, reveals that a formal cost-benefit analysis involves making value judgements which are not necessarily uncontrover- sial. Consider, for example, the costs and benefits of the policy prescription - familiar to any country undertaking one of the structural adjustment programmes advocated by the World Bank - that governments should reduce tariff rates. Consumers will find that they can buy imported goods more cheaply than before; this is likely to be the chief benefit following from a tariff reform.
eBook - PDF- Dominic J. Brewer, Patrick J. McEwan(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
The Social Benefits of education are normally defined to include the total benefits of education, including the exter-nal benefits. Therefore, private market and private nonmar-ket benefits, which are part of this total, must be identified so that they can be distinguished from the externalities. That is, to arrive at the total value of the external Social Benefits the value of each must be estimated, including the indirect effects! In what follows, each of these concepts will be further explained as will the method of estimating their value. This is followed by a review of the empirical evidence for each, and estimates of their monetary value. The method of valuing the indirect effects will be explained, followed by considering those studies that have sought to measure the value of aggregate education externalities without identifying each. Distinguishing Private Market, Private Nonmarket, and Social Benefits The external Social Benefits of education are not the same as nonmarket benefits. Some nonmarket benefits are pri-vate benefits, such as better own health, and some public benefits raise market earnings, such as political stability. These concepts and the methods of measuring each need to be distinguished. The Market Benefits of Education The market benefits of education are the additions to earnings, or in the aggregate the additions to per capita economic growth, that are due to education. These are increments to earnings above the amount earned by those with less education, measured either by a Mincer earnings function or by the full method that computes a pure internal rate of return (see McMahon, 1991). Increments to aggregate per capita growth are measured using a growth equation based recently on Lucas’ (1988: 18) endogenous growth theory. His production function, including investment in human and physical capital, is normally augmented to include trade, the rule of law or political stability, life expectancy, and shocks.
- L. Sacconi, G. Antoni, L. Sacconi, G. Antoni(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
Unintended effects are linked to pos- itive externalities generated by the firm’s operation in terms of positive impacts on the well-being of an entire local community achieved by dif- fusing voluntary actions and social norms, independently of the specific group of beneficiaries of the firm’s services. Positive external effects and the accumulation of social capital (Coleman 1990) are indirect, but not sec- ondary, effects of the operation of social enterprises. Specifically, as defined by political scientists (see Putnam 1996; Putnam et al. 1993), social capital concerns the advantages for collectivities by virtue of the civic norms pre- vailing among their members. Social cohesion and trust relations are crucial factors in defining social capital in general, and seem particularly relevant in social enterprises, since these organizations incur competitive advantages in developing trustworthiness, social norms, voluntary actions, cooperation among stakeholders and behaviors based on reciprocity (Depedri 2010). Fur- thermore, the development of social capital and positive externalities is linked to the ability of social enterprises to build networks among mutually dependent and co-motivated actors (Sacchetti and Sugden 2003), favoring the reduction of transaction costs and the expression of intrinsic and pro- social motivations. The ability to support the accumulation of social capital relates to the way in which social enterprises gather the necessary resources, define their objectives, and govern and involve the relevant patrons; but it should be interpreted as a by-product of the organization’s objectives, not as its main aim. 2 This framework also makes it possible to evidence the ability of social enterprises to internalize important external effects linked to the pursuit of entrepreneurial objectives.
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