Benchmarks and Economic Analysis
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Bingyuan Hsiung
This paper analyzes a concept that has attracted relatively little attention in the literature, even though the concept is important to both theoretical analysis and human behavior in general. Specifically, the concept of a benchmark and its implications are explored. In advancing an argument, economists are taking the existing literature as the departure point and trying to add value. Controversies and/or debates between economists are often related to the fact that their arguments are based on different benchmarks. In addition, benchmarks are also prevalent in the other social sciences, with Weber’s ideal types in sociology and various doctrines in legal studies as clear examples. Both theoretical and behavioral benchmarks are illustrated, and a synthesis is provided. In essence, benchmarks are tools and the functioning and maintenance of these tools are affected by cost/benefit considerations pertaining to all tools. Moreover, as behaviors are inevitably related to benchmarks, having a better benchmark improves the efficiency of resource allocation. It is argued that the economic worldview, once adopted, constitutes a useful benchmark for the general public. The reasons are provided and possible ingredients of such a worldview are suggested.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Macroeconomic Instability and Corporate Failure: The Role of the Legal System
- Prevention of Crime and the Optimal Standard of Proof in Criminal Law
- Does a Rise in Maximal Fines Increase or Decrease the Optimal Level of Deterrence?
- Benchmarks and Economic Analysis
- Pass a Law, Any Law, Fast! State Legislative Responses to the Kelo Backlash
- The Problem of Shared Social Cost
- A Cost of Tax Planning
- Never Two Without Three: Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons
- Unavoidable Accident
- Protecting Private Property with Constitutional Judicial Review: A Social Welfare Approach
- Measuring Criminal Spillovers: Evidence from Three Strikes
- Corruption on the Court: The Causes and Social Consequences of Point-Shaving in NCAA Basketball
- Valuation of Quality of Life Losses Associated with Nonfatal Injury: Insights from Jury Verdict Data
- Belief in a Just World, Blaming the Victim, and Hate Crime Statutes
- Do Citizens Know Whether Their State Has Decriminalized Marijuana? Assessing the Perceptual Component of Deterrence Theory
- The Structure of Incremental Liability Rules
- Firms' Motivations for Environmental Overcompliance
- Contingent Fees, Signaling and Settlement Authority
- Rethinking the Economic Model of Deterrence: How Insights from Empirical Social Science Could Affect Policies Towards Crime and Punishment
- Crime, Business Conduct and Investment Decisions: Enterprise Survey Evidence from 34 Countries in Europe and Asia
- Additive and Non-Additive Risk Factors in Multiple Causation
- The Devil Made Me Do It: The Corporate Purchase of Insurance
- Factors Affecting the Length of Time a Jury Deliberates: Case Characteristics and Jury Composition
- Hybrid Licensing of Product Innovations
- The Effect of Endogenous Right-to-Work Laws on Business and Economic Conditions in the United States: A Multivariate Approach
- The Choice in the Lawmaking Process: Legal Transplants vs. Indigenous Law
- Building Encroachments
- Reporter's Privilege and Incentives to Leak
- Decision Analysis on Whether to Accept a Remittitur
- Deterrence in Rank-Order Tournaments
- Self-Defeating Subsidiarity
- Do Broader Eminent Domain Powers Increase Government Size?
