IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v67y1991i4p307-316.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Social Opportunity Cost of Foreign Exchange: A Partial Defence of Harberger et al

Author

Listed:
  • GEORGE FANE

Abstract

This paper clarifies the literature on shadow pricing foreign exchange by distinguishing between two different concepts of ‘the social opportunity cost’ of foreign exchange: (a) the increase in utility (divided by the marginal utility of income) due to the availability of an extra dollar of foreign aid receipts; and (b) the maximum amount of some numeraire good which can be used up by the public sector to produce an extra dollar of foreign exchange, without reducing welfare. Both these concepts can be measured by appropriate, but different, versions of the traditional ‘Harberger’ formula The difference disappears entirely under the assumptions which justify partial equilibrium analysis. All these points can be clarified using a single diagram

Suggested Citation

  • George Fane, 1991. "The Social Opportunity Cost of Foreign Exchange: A Partial Defence of Harberger et al," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 67(4), pages 307-316, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:67:y:1991:i:4:p:307-316
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.1991.tb02560.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1991.tb02560.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1991.tb02560.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandmo, Agnar & Dreze, Jacques H, 1971. "Discount Rates for Public Investment in Closed and Open Economies," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 38(152), pages 395-412, November.
    2. Balassa, Bela, 1974. "Estimating the Shadow Price of Foreign Exchange in Project Appraisal," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 147-168, July.
    3. Tatsuo Hatta, 1977. "A Theory of Piecemeal Policy Recommendations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(1), pages 1-21.
    4. Tower, Edward & Pursell, Garry G, 1987. "On Shadow Pricing Labour and Foreign Exchange," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 318-332, June.
    5. Harberger, Arnold C, 1971. "Three Basic Postulates for Applied Welfare Economics: An Interpretive Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 785-797, September.
    6. Warr, Peter G, 1980. "Properties of Optimal Shadow Prices for a Tax-Distorted Open Economy," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(34), pages 31-45, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Glenn P. Jenkins & Chun-Yan kuo & Arnold C. Harberger, 2020. "Analyse Couts-Avantages Pour Les Decisions D’Investissement Chapitre 9; Le Prix Ombre Des Bourses D'échange Et De Marchandises Non Commercialisables," Development Discussion Papers 2020-09, JDI Executive Programs.
    2. Glenn Jenkins & Chun-Yan Kuo & Arnold C. Harberger, 2011. "Cost-Benefit Analysis for Investment Decisions: Chapter 9 (The Shadow Price of Foreign Exchange and Non-Tradable Outlays)," Development Discussion Papers 2011-09, JDI Executive Programs.
    3. Glenn P. Jenkins & Chun-Yan Kuo & Sener Salci, 2013. "Measuring The Foreign Exchange Premium And The Premium For Non-Tradable Outlays For Twenty Countries In Africa," Development Discussion Papers 2013-05, JDI Executive Programs.
    4. Chun-Yan Kuo & Sener Salci & Glenn P. Jenkins, 2015. "Measuring the Foreign Exchange Premium and the Premium for Non-Tradable Outlays for 20 Countries in Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(2), pages 269-285, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin, Will, 2021. "Tools for measuring the full impacts of agricultural interventions," IFPRI-MCC technical papers 2, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Burgess, David F., 2013. "Reconciling alternative views about the appropriate social discount rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 9-17.
    3. Glenn Jenkins & CHUN-YAN KUO & JOHN GIRALDEZ, 2007. "Canadian Regulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis Guide," Development Discussion Papers 2007-03, JDI Executive Programs.
    4. Chris Jones, 2005. "Why the Marginal Social Cost of Funds is not the Shadow Value of Government Revenue," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2005-449, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    5. Fane, George & Ahammad, Helal, 2004. "Alternative ways of measuring and decomposing equivalent variation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 175-189, January.
    6. David F. Burgess & Richard O. Zerbe, 2013. "Appropriate discounting for benefit–cost analysis," Chapters, in: Scott O. Farrow & Richard Zerbe, Jr. (ed.), Principles and Standards for Benefit–Cost Analysis, chapter 7, pages 247-263, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. G. Fane & H. Ahammad, 2000. "Decomposing Welfare Changes," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 00-12, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    8. Barnett, William A. & Erwin Diewert, W. & Zellner, Arnold, 2011. "Introduction to measurement with theory," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(1), pages 1-5, March.
    9. Graham,Errol George & Tchale,Hardwick & Ndione,Mamadou, 2020. "An Optimal Rice Policy for Sierra Leone : Balancing Consumer and Producer Welfare," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9369, The World Bank.
    10. Evan F. Koenig, 1985. "Indirect Methods for Regulating Externalities Under Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(2), pages 479-493.
    11. Russell Pittman, 2007. "Consumer Surplus as the Appropriate Standard for Antitrust Enforcement," EAG Discussions Papers 200709, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
    12. Glenn P. Jenkins & Chun-Yan kuo & Arnold C. Harberger, 2020. "Analyse Couts-Avantages Pour Les Decisions D’Investissement Chapitre 9; Le Prix Ombre Des Bourses D'échange Et De Marchandises Non Commercialisables," Development Discussion Papers 2020-09, JDI Executive Programs.
    13. Kooten, G. Cornelis van, 2013. "Modeling Forest Trade in Logs and Lumber: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis," Working Papers 149182, University of Victoria, Resource Economics and Policy.
    14. Stephen Martin, 2019. "The Potential Compensation Principle and Constant Marginal Utility of Income," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 383-393, September.
    15. Udo Ebert, 1986. "Equity and distribution in cost-benefit analysis," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 67-78, December.
    16. Kevin Boyle & Sapna Kaul & Ali Hashemi & Xiaoshu Li, 2015. "Applicability of benefit transfers for evaluation of homeland security counterterrorism measures," Chapters, in: Carol Mansfield & V. K. Smith (ed.), Benefit–Cost Analyses for Security Policies, chapter 10, pages 225-253, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Heckman, James, 2001. "Accounting for Heterogeneity, Diversity and General Equilibrium in Evaluating Social Programmes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(475), pages 654-699, November.
    18. Jeffrey T. LaFrance, 1990. "Incomplete Demand Systems And Semilogarithmic Demand Models," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 34(2), pages 118-131, August.
    19. Chao, Chi-Chur & Yu, Eden S. H., 1995. "The shadow price of foreign exchange in a dual economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 195-202, February.
    20. Kym Anderson & Johan Swinnen, 2008. "Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Europe's Transition Economies," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6502, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:67:y:1991:i:4:p:307-316. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.