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Quality of Life and Income Redistribution: Objectives for Water Resources Planning
This research was initiated to develop a practical procedure for evaluating and
measuring the social well-being objective from water resource projects. As the
research proceeded it quickly became apparent that the broad "social" objective
with its diverse components did not lend itself to a simple, single indicator measure.
As a result, the procedural section deals primarily with measuring income
effects which as it turned out became the social effect component which received
emphasis in the revised principles and standards.
The income redistribution effects of a project are determined by: 1) allocation
benefits to incidence groups. 2) determining incidence group incomes by class.
3) sub-allocating benefits to income class within these groups. 4) determining tax
burden by income class and 5) calculating net incidence by income class and valuing
it in terms of either marginal utility of income or in terns of income transfer
elasticities. This research opts for a modified marginal utility of income approach
which compares a project's income redistribution performance with the income effects
of all federal expenditures and taxes.
The test of the procedure was applied to an urban flood control project which
affects incomes of diverse incidence groups ranging from residential property owners
to corporation stockholders. Direct income data was lacking in some cases and broad
regional or national income data had to be adapted to the local area. Suggested
additional income data which could be gathered at the time of the study survey would increase the accuracy of the incidence estimates.
Michael R Krouse
Jul1972 | NTIS: AD-A752151
1
Total Volumes: 1
Pages: 86
1972-RPT-04 | Download
(pdf, 1.4 MB) |
INSTITUTE FOR WATER RESOURCES
