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Smart Development

Jaká opatření by měla mít prioritu?

Jun 15, 2016 Bjørn Lomborg

COLORADO SPRINGS – Politici na celém světě čelí každý den závratnému množství voleb. Čím více investují například do vzdělání, tím méně zbyde na provoz nemocnic, boj se znečištěním či na zvýšení zemědělské produktivity. Lobbistické skupiny, aktivisté a média prosazují určitá témata – solární panely, virus Zika, uzavírání mezer v daňovém systému – zatímco méně atraktivní témata jako výživa, nebo nepřenosné choroby, mohou zmizet z radaru. A politika většiny zemí má příslovečná “nedotknutelná“ témata – opatření či programy (například penze), které jsou natolik posvátné, že prakticky každý politik, který se jich dotkne, čelí jisté politické smrti.

Část problému je, že když vlády investují do ekonomické analýzy, mají tendenci tak činit postupně, opatření za opatřením, přičemž se ptají: bude to nákladově efektivní? Ano? Tak to udělejme.

Co kdyby se ale politici dívali na škálu možností simultánně – a porovnávali náklady na stavbu mostů s výdaji na školní knihy – aby zjistili, kam v prvé řadě směřovat dodatečné finance?

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Bjørn Lomborg

Writing for PS since 2005
181 Commentaries

Bjørn Lomborg, a visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, is Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. His books include The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World, and, most recently, Prioritizing Development. In 2004, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people for his research on the smartest ways to help the world.

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Jose araujo Jun 15, 2016

Never have I seen a project with negative NPV. Busines plans are easily biased and allways will favour the decision maker.

Also the Discounted Cash Flow approach fails when applied to externalities, capacity or high risk/volatility projects, which tend to be the nature of the social projects.

But in the end this approach has litle merits because, first its something that has been in place for decads without solving the main issue, which is quality realiable data and accountability on the ones who make the business plans.

Second, we live in a world where there is no such thing has scarse resources (in the developed countries), so instead of developing rules to sort the use of resources we should be focused on developing new uses for resources and creating opportunities.
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Alexander Aubert Jun 15, 2016

Lomborg here seems to postulate that he and his think tank invented the idea of opportunity cost, a basic idea that every political and economical student surely must have met. While maybe sometimes politicians favor areas which may not seem the best way to spend money, blaming it on politicians being unable to grasp the most basic of prioritizing seems dubious. More likely it would seem that it is the public and journalists, not world leaders, who needs to start looking at what issues are the most important to address.
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