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E.J. Mishan’s Contributions to Cost-Benefit Analysis and
Welfare Economics
Euston Quah and Yew-Kwang Ng
Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University;
14 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637332.
Email Correspondence: ecsquahe@ntu.edu.sg ; ykng@ntu.edu.sg
1. Introduction
Professor Ezra J. Mishan’s contribution to Economics has been immense. Mishan,
who died on 22 September 2014, was one of the first economists to argue that there
are significant downsides to economic growth. His book The Costs of Economic
Growth (1966) maintained that increases in GDP and real income were compatible
with declines in happiness and social welfare. In fact, he found that growth often
brought less of the nonmaterial things that make us happy: peace of mind, space,
greenery and clean air, for example. More controversially, Mishan argued that
growth led to more hedonism and a permissive society, which he saw as
detrimental to welfare. His thesis preceded the rise of the environmental
movement, and remains persuasive and relevant to the realities of the 21st century,
when strong economic growth is often associated with environmental degradation.
Much of Mishan’s writing focused on what economists called negative
“externalities”, the adverse side effects of economic transactions. The parties
involved in an exchange may inadvertently create costs for others not connected
with it. In 1971, Mishan produced his celebrated textbook, Cost-Benefit Analysis,
and the revised fifth edition1 is still being used around the world today.
1 The fifth edition of Cost-Benefit Analysis (2007), published by Routledge, is co-authored with Euston Quah. The
sixth edition is in preparation.
Governments in both the developed and the developing world use the technique to
make informed decisions in areas ranging from infrastructure development to
health and education. At worldwide summits, international lending agencies also
require some form of cost-benefit analysis in approving projects from developing
countries.
Both of us have already written about Mishan’s important contributions. In
particular, Quah (2014) had discussed Mishan’s immense contributions to the
literature pertaining to cost-benefit analysis, welfare and normative economics.
Mishan’s influence on the economic literature in his own fields of competence has
been profound and he was often recognized as among the foremost authorities in
the field of resource allocation. He also enjoys an international reputation as a
popular writer on the impact of modern economic growth on social welfare. Ng
(2016) focuses on the possibility of immiserizing growth on which Mishan (1967)
was an outstanding early advocate, with Ng (2003) an obvious convert. In this
paper, Quah (Section 2) focuses mainly on Mishan’s contribution on cost-benefit
analysis and Ng (Section 3) focuses on the qualifications to Mishan’s arguments
questioning globalization and immigration.
2. Three Classic Predicaments of Cost-Benet Analysis
Of Mishan’s myriad valued and oft avant-garde contributions to the vast realm of
economic thought, one of his more significant contributions was his strong stance
on the use of cost-benefit analysis in public policy. As evident from his many
published books on cost-benefit analysis, Mishan had long been a proponent of
using the cost-benefit analysis method in evaluating government welfare and
environmental projects. Here, we discuss Mishan’s contributions towards 3 of the
classic predicaments of cost-benefit analysis, namely the accounting stance, non-
conventional spill-over effects and the value of statistical life.
2.1 The Accounting Stance
Before delving into the nuances of conducting cost-benefit analysis studies, one
must make clear Mishan’s stance on how an economist should approach a cost-
benefit analysis study. Mishan believed that an economist should focus on
maximizing society’s welfare, in contrast with that of an individual rationally
maximizing his/her own personal welfare. It is with the optimization of the
summed individual benefits across all collective members of a community that
Mishan have concerned himself with.
In conducting a cost-benefit analysis study, there is an inherent difficulty in
identifying the members of a society that have accounting stance, for whom which
the costs and benefits accrued by a project should be accounted for. Undeniably,
the exclusion of specific individuals from consideration in cost-benefit analysis
studies may affect the results of its analysis. As such, it is crucial for cost-benefit
analysis studies to be very clear as to which accounting stance should be taken,
least the results be skewed by the influence of personal agendas.
As an example, suppose that the government is planning to build a nuclear
plant near its border. Certainly, the cost-benefit analysis accounting stance should
include the country’s local residents who would face the cost of increased radiation
risk. However, what is less clear would be whether the government should include
the costs incurred by local residents of the neighboring country. As we can see, the
accounting stance can be based on a multiple of factors, from geographical
proximity to nationality, and to some other form of segmentation of society.
Another example of an accounting stance predicament would be the case of
a proposed dam in a country upstream of a transboundary river. In a narrow version
of the accounting stance, one would only take into account the cost and benefits of
the country’s citizens affected by the dam. No account would be taken of the
countries located downstream. If, however, the accounting stance were broader,
then the benefits of the dam would also accrue to the citizens of other countries
located downstream. Thus, the accrued benefits for a regionally defined accounting
stance would have been larger.
Besides the accounting stance, Mishan was also concerned with issues
relating to equity. In the example of the dam, it is clear that in a national
accounting stance, the dam may generate a net benefit for society. However, the
poorer rural populations, where the dam is sited, may have to bear most of the
costs in the form of relocation and lost livelihoods while the comparatively richer
urban populace reap the benefits of cheaper electricity. Should a project that
largely benefits the richer strata of society, with the burden of cost laden on the
poor, be undertaken? This is often the case when it comes to siting facilities which
benefits the wider society but harms the immediate residents around the facilities.
Such phenomena are often encountered in cases of NIMBYs (Not-in-my-backyard)
(Quah, 1998, 2002, 2008).
Mishan wisely advocated conducting a strictly impartial project evaluation
whilst raising the real possibilities of such ethical dilemmas to policymakers.
Unfortunately, cost-benefit analysis studies frequently stray into the realms of
morality and philosophy. Yet, recognition of these issues is required as they
unquestionably affect society.
2.2 Non-Conventional Spill-over Effects
Addressing non-conventional spill-over effects is another essential component of
cost-benefit analysis methodology that Mishan had shone much-needed light on. In
his seminal masterpiece, The Costs of Economic Growth (1967, reprinted several
times), he brought awareness to the conundrum of the increasing wealthy yet
dissatisfied First World. In unravelling this contradictory enigma, Mishan looked
beyond mundane figures of Gross Domestic Production (GDP) figures, and
proposed consideration for the much-neglected fields of social welfare. He
suggested that one factor for the sustained discontent was the “Keeping up with the
Joneses” effect. According to Mishan (1980), the problem was that “once
subsistence levels are exceeded, the possession of more goods is neither the sole
nor the chief source of men's satisfaction”. On the contrary, the acquisition of
accumulative material goods would lead to deepening dissatisfaction among
neighbors, resulting in a less than perceived increase in social welfare. Mishan
advocated the idea of including the often-neglected social cost in cost-benefit
analysis decisions and railed against the fallacy of “growthmania”, which regarded
“economic growth as an ultimate good in itself” (Mishan, 1972).
One popularized solution is the use of questionnaire surveys in determining
social welfare. In Mishan’s own words, “Surveys based on the questionnaire
method may be suspect, but they are sometimes better than guesswork, and
assuredly better than no information at all.” (Mishan, 1972). Despite the implicit
speculative nature of surveys, stringent adherence to proper surveying techniques
would still render resulting figures not altogether implausible, and thus valuable in
a cost-benefit analysis study.
Perhaps surprisingly, Mishan was a research graduate of the University of
Chicago, one of the world’s most market-oriented departments. He was always
circumspect about rightist, non-interventionist prescriptions on the economy and
governance, and believed that there had to be checks and balances, and the correct
amount of government intervention.
His writings often remind readers of significant market failures resulting in
welfare losses. In addition to the social malaise that may accompany a freely and
seemingly unregulated competitive market system, Mishan also questioned the
effectiveness of market-derived solutions in the modern world of rapidly changing
technology.
2.3 Value of Statistical Life
Mishan’s work on the statistical valuation of human life also made an impact. His
paper The Evaluation of Life and Limb (1971) set out the argument that
policymakers could assess the benefits of a particular measure by weighing its cost
against how much it would reduce the risk of death. Such studies deriving the
value of human life from people’s willingness to pay — on the basis, for example,
that an expressed readiness to pay £100 to reduce the risk of death by 10% values
that individual’s statistical life at £1000 — are widely used in public project
evaluations. These findings are crucial to public-sector investments in health, as
well as in transport projects.
When evaluating the value of a human life, it is intrinsically impracticable to
establish a definite figure. After all, as Mishan puts it, “the value of a person’s life
to himself is unlikely to be finite; no sum of money, no matter how large, will
induce him to surrender his life” (Mishan & Quah, 2007). Yet, in dealing with cost-
benefit analysis studies that involve alterations in the incidences of death,
disablement or disease, it is crucial to have a feasible number to base project
evaluations on.
Mishan proposed that it is our only recourse to calculate the pertinent values
by looking at the compensatory sums required for people to assume a heightened
risk of harm. Hence, for a project to be acceptable, the benefits of the project must
outweigh the sum of the compensating variation of all affected individuals
(Mishan, 1971). This basis of using the summation of the individual willingness to
pay has become “the standard for calculating the value of statistical life”, for which
Mishan is accredited for its popularization (Biausque, 2012).
The approaches to three of the classic dilemmas of cost-benefit analysis
covered in this section only reflects but a minute part of Mishan’s contribution
towards the cost-benefit analysis methodology, for which Mishan has dedicated
much exhaustive efforts for its advancement. For his tireless contributions, Mishan
has been justly recognized as a preeminent authority on cost-benefit analysis with
“highly influential works that have attempted to reconcile development with the
environment” (Papadakis & Schreurs, 1998).
The cost-benefit analysis methodology might have been formalized well
before Mishan’s time by Alfred Marshall (Gamsakhurdia, 2013), but it was
Mishan, among other great welfare economists, that refined much aspects in the
use of cost-benefit analysis for applied welfare economics. This is particularly
useful for public policy.
3. Three Commonly Ignored Benefits of Immigration/Population Increases to
Existing People
As correctly observed by Sinclair (2016, pp. 2-3), Mishan is regarded as ‘the first
academic economist of note to voice serious worries about economic growth’.
Also, Mishan impressed observers as a remarkable mixture of ‘a man of the left …
a thorough-going economic liberal … an uncompromising social conservative …
contrarian and sage’ (Sinclair 2016, pp. 7-8). This section addresses Mishan’s
(2005, 2006, 2009) ‘uncompromising social conservative’ view against
globalization and immigration. Readers should keep in mind that this view reflects
only a small part of Mishan’s overall viewpoints.
Globalization involves many other issues, but this section will focus on the
effects of immigration (and also population growth through more births, as they
have some similar effects in increasing the population size) that were also a main
concern of Mishan. To begin with, we concede to a possible problem of
immigration. If social harmony is seriously compromised due to immigration,
serious problems may arise. Thus, our discussion below applies mainly to cases,
like Singapore, where harmony is largely maintained. Alternatively viewed, our
analysis is confined to examining the economic effects only, which were also the
main focus of Mishan.
Discussing the effects of globalization (mainly free trade and movement of
people), Mishan (2005, p.69) concluded that, ‘Unless the South-to-North
movement of peoples, legal and illegal, can somehow be curbed, it may not be
possible in Western countries to maintain over the foreseeable future current levels
of employment among their indigenous workers, especially those with limited
skills – at least, not without their eventual acceptance of some decline in their real
wages.’ (This argument was repeated in Mishan 2009, Chapter/Fallacy 3.)
Mishan’s case is based on well-known basic economics. From the viewpoint
of a country of the richer North, the imports of labour-intensive goods, exports of
capital and skill-intensive goods, immigration of labour, especially unskilled
labour, exportation of capital all serve to lower the marginal product of labour
domestically, and hence lead to unemployment and/or lower wages. In a comment
on Mishan, Meadowcroft (2006) correctly advances some real-world factors
(including the monetary and non-monetary costs of migration, higher
productivities of domestic workers, the desirability of freedom, etc.) that limit the
effects emphasized by Mishan. While we agree with virtually all points
emphasized by Meadowcroft, we believe that he missed out three of the most
important points against the case against immigration (as well as free trade and
population increase) by Mishan and many others, as discussed below.
3.1 Immigration/Population Needs not Decrease Per-Capita Income
The simple economic model used by Mishan and others is based on constant
returns to scale, a doubling of all inputs exactly doubles output, both at the firm
and the economy level. An increase in population size either through immigration
or natural increase then tends to decrease income per head, if technology and land
(or natural resources) are given, since land per head will be reduced. If immigrants
do not bring in capital no less than the domestic average capital per head, capital
per head is also reduced and makes the reduction in income per head worse. Even
in this unfavourable case of a reduction in income per head for the domestic
economy, we argue below that immigration does not usually make originally
domestic people worse off (Subsection 3.2 below). Here, we first argue that, in a
more realistic model taking account of increasing returns (especially those at the
economy level through the economies of specialization from the higher division of
labour), an increase in population may not decrease income per head.
The simple economic model based on perfectly competitive firms allows
some properties of a market economy to be established more simply and rigorously
under ideal conditions. In particular, the efficiency of market coordination (the
invisible hand) is shown as the first theorem in welfare economics (see Ng 2015
for an exposition). While providing useful insights and a benchmark, the
assumption of perfect competition is very unrealistic. A perfectly competitive firm
faces a horizontal demand curve for its product. A definite equilibrium requires an
upward-sloping marginal cost curve. This implies that the firm in a profit-
maximization equilibrium does not want to sell any more units at the same price, as
the additional costs involved will be larger than the additional revenues. We have
not encountered any firm or seller behaving this way in the real world. Rather,
almost universally, we see something like $10 for one and $16 for two, suggesting
that the marginal cost is likely some 40% or more below the price, implying the
existence of substantial market power or that the demand curve for the product is
downward sloping. Perfect competition rules out increasing returns at the firm
level. This is so as increasing returns imply a declining average cost curve. With a
horizontal demand curve, profits may then be increased indefinitely by just
increasing output. However, perfect competition seldom prevails and increasing
returns are omnipresent. One common source of increasing returns is the presence
of significant fixed costs. Even just to sell one unit, you need the size of your shop
to be big enough to allow consumers to come in. Otherwise you have to sell to ants
and bees, but they do not have cash. Also, one seldom can obtain shop rentals for a
period of less than one or three months. (Online commerce reduces the importance
of such constraints, but not completely.) With some substantial amount of fixed
costs, the average cost curve is sharply downward sloping (especially at low output
levels), giving rise to large increasing returns.
Increasing returns also prevail at the industry and economy levels. In
particular, external economies between firms and within the industry, including
through skill learning, lead to increasing returns to scale at the industrial level, as
discussed at least from Alfred Marshall. On the other hand, economies of
specialization from the division of labour lead to increasing returns at the economy
level, as discussed by Adam Smith and beyond. (For more recent analyses, see
Yang & Ng 1993; Giles, forthcoming.) In addition, we may also have increasing
returns at the international level when we introduce international economic
relationships.
The negative effects on the per-capita income of a larger population through
a lower level of land or resources per head may be more than offset by the positive
effects of increasing returns at the various levels. In addition to this static effect,
we may also have the dynamic effect of a higher level of technological advance
with a larger population, including through the Mozart effect: the larger population
size increases the number of geniuses.
Do the positive effects offset the negative effects? Conceptually, either case
is possible. Obviously, if we have very excessive population density, especially if
the increase in population is sudden and without enough time for a corresponding
increase in infrastructures, the negative effects will likely dominate. However,
there is casual empirical evidence to suggest that, for most normal cases, the
positive effects dominate. Within an individual country, people in densely
populated cities have higher incomes and more convenient transportation than
people in sparsely populated rural areas, and that people in a much more densely
populated continent (Europe) have higher incomes and more convenient amenities
than people in the sparsely populated continent (Africa). The industrial revolution
started in a densely population area of the world (Western Europe, including the
U.K.). Also, when offered a similar job with a similar salary, most people prefer
one in a big city than one in a small town, despite much higher rental expenses in
the former.
As reported on 23 February 2016, a medical doctor (Dr. Alan Kenny) in the
small town of Kotoroa of less than 20,000 inhabitants in New Zealand attempted
unsuccessfully to hire an assistant doctor. Despite offering a very attractive annual
salary of NZ$400,000, 4 working days a week, 12 weeks of annual leave, not a
single person applied for the job, after contacting 4 medical job companies and
waiting for 2 years. Also, according to official data of Japan released on 26
February 2016, the total population of Japan decreased by 947,000 persons
compared to 2010; however, bigger Tokyo has an increase of 510,000 to 3,613,000.
If a larger population is undesirable, why do bigger cities get bigger, and few
people want to go to small towns and the country side?
When congested, most people think: “If the number of cars or passengers
were halved, how nice it would be!” However, given the amount of taxes per head,
the width of road and the number of buses would also be roughly halved. We are
likely to have more congestion and less convenience. The second author did his
first degree in the old Nanyang University over 1962-5 when the population in
Singapore was less than 2 million. If the students then missed the only bus out of
the campus, they had to wait half an hour. Now, with more than 3 times the
population (5.6 million), when the second author first tried to catch the 179 bus out
of NTU, same location as Nanyang University, he found two 179s missed him. He
thought he had to wait at least 20 minutes. But the third 179 came in less than 2
minutes. This is a big advantage of a larger population that most people ignore.
3.2 A Larger Population Benefits Existing People Economically
We argue above that a larger population may not decrease the per-capita income. In
this sub-section, we argue that, even if a larger population decreases the per-capita
income of the country/city, the normal economic effects (not counting possible
disharmony effects) are to make existing people better off. The basic point is that
the lower per-capita income of the larger population applies to the new people
(immigrants and/or the newly born). If we focus on the per-capita income of pre-
existing people before the population increase, their incomes are actually increased
by the population increase. For example, a country of 6 million persons has a per-
capita income of $50k. An increase to 8 million persons may reduce the per-capita
income to $48k. However, this may be consistent with: The 2 million new
people/immigrants having a lower per-capita income of $40k and the pre-existing 6
million persons having a higher per-capita income of $50.67k. The main reason for
such a result is that immigrants cannot take away assets (ignoring crimes) owned
by existing residents without paying for them. Their higher demand actually pushes
up their prices, making existing residents economically better off.
To see this point most simply, consider the simple textbook case of constant
returns to scale, perfect competition, no external effects, no-government, and
payment to factors of production in accordance to marginal productivity. For
simplicity, consider the immigration of unskilled labor without capital or any other
economic ability like entrepreneurship, a case probably regarded as least favorable.
For simplicity and concreteness, but without real loss of generality for this
simplified case, suppose that the production function of this relevant economy is Y
= L1/2 K1/2 where L is unskilled labor and K is the composite of all other factors
which are held constant at K = 100. Before immigration, L = 100, Y = 100, and
with the normalization of one person one unit of labor supply, the per-capita
income is one, with, on average, each person earning half of her unit of income
from L and another half from K, and with the price/wage-rate for L and K (being
equal to ∂Y/∂L and ∂Y/∂K respectively) both at ½. Now introduce the immigration
of 10 persons each with one unit of L but no K. The total output after immigration
increases from 100 to approximately 104.9, but the per-capita income decreases
from 1 to approximately 0.9535. Have the original 100 local residents been made
worse off economically? No! The marginal product of L decreases from 0.5 to
0.47673, but the marginal product of K increases from 0.5 to 0.5244. For an
average local who own one L and one K, her income increases from 1 to
1.0011344. She actually gains from the immigration. This gain is due to the fact
that, even ignoring other possible positive factors like increasing returns, the
immigration of a particular factor decreases the marginal product of this factor but
increases the marginal products of complementary factors by more. Thus, the
original residents as a whole group actually gain economically from immigration.
This is so despite from the possible decrease in per-capita income. The decrease in
per-capita income applies to all people including the new immigrants. Focusing on
the per-capita income hides the fact that local residents may gain despite a fall in
per-capita income calculated to include the new immigrants.
This gain may also be seen by the point that the 10 immigrants earns the
marginal product of L (MPL) when L=110, but their total contribution to
production equals the integration of MPL from L=100 to L=110. With diminishing
marginal productivity of L (as K is held constant and constant returns to scale is
assumed), MPL is higher at L=100 than at L=110. Thus, the total contribution to
production of these 10 immigrants is higher than their total earnings. Their
contribution net of their incomes must thus be positive. The original 100 residents
must benefit as a group. If these 100 residents do not own the same amount of L
and K, those mainly or exclusively only own L may lose, but those mainly own K
must gain by more. Local residents benefit from immigration even in this simple
model with no increasing returns (discussed in Subsection 3.1 above) and public
goods (Subsection 3.3 below).
However, our simple model above does not allow for such negative factors
like congestion and pollution. Does the introduction of these negative factors make
local residents worse off with immigration? As shown by Clarke & Ng (1993), if
external costs like congestion and pollution are taxed according to their marginal
damages, even if immigration worsens the situation of congestion and pollution,
local residents still benefit from the larger population size. However, this positive
result does not apply to immigrants who rely on government subsidies that cannot
be offset by their future tax payment.
There is a possible distributional consideration not covered above. Thus, in the
simple model above, while local residents as a group gain, owners of L may lose.
If they belong to the lower-income groups, inequality may increase. The loss of the
poor of $X may more than offset the gain of the rich of $2X in welfare terms.
However, on the possible concern regarding the fairness or equality of a larger
population through immigration, one may invoke the principle of treating a dollar
as a dollar on specific issues, leaving the objective of reducing inequality to the
general tax/transfer system as being more efficient (Pareto-optimal), even taking
account of the disincentive effects of the tax/transfer system (Ng 1984). (We are
not against the promotion of more equality, just in favour of using more efficient
ways for such promotion so that more equality may be achieved at any given
amount of efficiency costs. This does not preclude that certain measures may
promote both efficiency and equality.) This is so because the specific equality-
oriented policies also have disincentive effects, though popularly ignored.
Moreover, though the immigration of unskilled workers into country A may make
the distribution of income within country A less equal, it actually makes
distribution more equal globally.
3.3 Reducing the Per-capita Costs of Public Goods
Another often ignored benefit (including in the Mishan-Meadowcroft exchange) of
population increases is that a larger population reduces the per-capita costs of
providing public goods. Extending pure public goods to more people involves
negligible marginal (additional) costs. Especially for a small country like
Singapore, the magnitudes of these cost-sharing benefits are likely to be very big,
especially in the important areas like defence, research, innovation, broadcasting,
etc. In addition, there are impure public goods like education, entertainment, health
and medical care where serving twice as many people at the same quality level
involves higher total costs, but less than doubling the amount. The estimates of the
likely gains from a larger population for specific cases are beyond the scope of this
paper.
Our discussion of the economic effects of immigration, though throwing some
lights, is inadequate to answer the general question on the desirability of
immigration, even just from the viewpoint of local residents only. This is so
because there may be negative non-economic effects that could more than offset
the positive economic effects. Obviously, if immigration leads to serious social
disharmony or even outright conflict, all people involved may be made seriously
worse off overall, even if the per-capita income increases significantly. However,
these non-economic issues are beyond the scope of this paper.
4. Concluding Remarks
In conveying his relatively anti-growth views, Mishan may had emitted dreary
vibes of a modern-day Luddite railing against technological progress. To quote
Mishan, “I am not one of those who believe that the original Luddites were wholly
wrong.” (Greene, 1971). However, a fairer evaluation of Mishan might be a
visionary who foresaw and warned of the more far-reaching impacts of
technological advances and their consequent effects on the environment and our
lives.
Mishan’s unorthodox stance is especially praiseworthy with his antagonistic
views against the growth-fevered zeitgeist of his time. Such a stance, unfortunately
drew considerable acute flak from his contemporaries. To this end, Mishan’s
willingness to stand against the conventions of the mainstream in defense of one’s
own belief is surely much commendable. Perhaps, the most telling testament as to
whether Mishan was justified in his defense might be that his views continues to
remain influential and “stays a fount of inspiration” for economists today (Sinclair,
2016).
For more information on Mishan’s biography, readers can read the obituary
honoring the memory of Professor Ezra J. Mishan (In The Guardian, UK, Nov 7
2014).
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