The Benefit-Transfer Challenges

Presidential Executive Order 12,866 requires federal agencies to design “cost-effective” regulations and to assess “costs and benefits” of these regulations on the basis of “the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other information.” Benefit transfers are one economic approach used to estimate these benefits and costs, and the use of existing economic information to predict the effects of new policies is well established. However, advancing the practice of benefit transfers is crucial if economists are to play a role in developing federal policies. We review contributions to the benefit-transfer literature and present a unified conceptual framework to guide the design and evaluation of benefit-transfer guidelines.