There are three broad areas of public administration that
require valuation for public goods. One of these areas is
concerned with value for cost benefit analysis. The concept
here is quantitative, in money terms, and the purpose is to
aid decision making. Planners and economists either
calculate, or estimate total costs and total benefits of
programs or projects as an aid to decision making.
The second broad area involves justifying, or allocating
public resources. Benefits bestowed by intangibles such as
the arts, or questions that affect the environment are
difficult to quantify as value may involve concepts the
beneficiaries find difficult to identify or describe. The
concept of value involves total costs, but also may involve
perceptions of the community about value. Valuation costs
may be calculated from the aggregate demand, but estimating
demand can be difficult.
The third broad area involves estimating demand for government
services such as those provided by the Bureau of Statistics,
and the Department of Administrative Services, as well as many
others, who are being required to charge fees for services
previously provided without direct charge. This development
is part of the trend called corporatisation now occurring in
many countries, including Australia.
Economists and planners have a range of approaches available
to assist them in the estimation of value, whether it be for
the purpose of comparing costs with benefits, or for
estimating the demand for tangible or intangible items like
the arts or statistics.
Surveys have been used for many years to assist a wide range
of decisions by private enterprise. The use of surveys by
government in Australia has been limited, but is increasing.
US and European governments have used surveys to value both
more and less tangible public goods since 1970. Surveys have
also proved useful to assist many other decisions, including
policy making, developing the means for implementing policies,
monitoring and adjusting programs, and evaluation.
This paper is primarily concerned with surveys. A particular
type of survey, known as contingent valuation (CV), has been
developed to assist the estimation of value for intangible
public goods. Also discussed are other applications of
surveys for government decision making, and other ways of
imputing or estimating values, largely developed by economists
and planners to assist cost benefit analysis.
Three examples of surveys used to estimate values are
discussed. These include a survey of Sydney households to
help estimate the value of clean water; an Australia wide
survey to help estimate the value of the arts; and a survey
of Australians to help estimate the value of Coronation Hill
without mining development.
While the paper suggests that surveys have potential to assist
a range of government decisions, examples also demonstrate the
care required to obtain results that are reasonably precise
and reliable.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218932 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Fethers, A. V., n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Management |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright A. V. Fethers |
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