Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 4-11, 1999

Volume 28, Number 7

Conference to explore 'dilemma' over use of cost-benefit analysis to make policy decisions

When considering whether to build a new road or institute a new environmental or safety regulation, policymakers will often base their decisions on formulae that weigh the potential costs of these ventures against the potential benefits.

Scholars and grass-roots activists from over 15 countries will gather at Yale Friday-Sunday, Oct. 8-10, to examine how policy makers have used cost-benefit analysis to justify controversial development projects and environmental decisions.

Titled "The Cost-Benefit Analysis Dilemma: Strategies and Alternatives," will take place in Rm. 119 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. It is free and open to the public.

"Cost-benefit analysis is often advertised as a neutral, non-political technique which helps societies make decisions," says Larry Lohmann of the Corner House, an independent not-for-profit research organization in the United Kingdom which is organizing the conference with Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies.

"But, in fact, it is stirring up an increasing amount of controversy, and it seems that the more it is refined, the less credibility it enjoys," he adds.

An increasing number of philosophers, legal scholars, economists, political scientists and biologists argue that cost-benefit analysis blocks rational deliberation by neglecting the plurality of values or by making questionable assumptions about predictability, discount rates and opportunity costs.

Opponents of roads and hydroelectric dams around the world, for example, often disagree with the ways cost-benefit analysis values land, forests, fisheries and livelihoods. Opponents also question its reliance on experts, its neglect of equity and its underlying political theory.

"The purpose of this conference is to bring together concerned people from a variety of fields who don't usually have a chance to meet each other to discuss why this is so," Lohmann says. "The conference will also be a chance to think collectively about less problematic and more democratic ways of conceptualizing decision-making."

International participants at the conference will include a representative from a group opposed to dam projects on India's Narmada River; economists from India and France; a climate activist with the London-based Global Commons Institute; and other scholars and public intellectuals from Thailand, Nigeria, Britain, Kenya, Pakistan, Vietnam, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Canada and India.

They will be joined by well-known environmentalists based in the United States. Yale professors Michael Dove and John Wargo of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and James C. Scott of the political science and anthropology departments will participate, together with environmental economist Joan Martinez-Alier, a fellow in Yale's Agrarian Studies Program.

The conference is receiving additional financial support from the Dutch Foundations NOVIB and HIVOS.

For more information, contact Steve Rhee (203) 624-3795.

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