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The Social Opportunity Cost of Foreign Exchange: A Partial Defence of Harberger et al. *
Author(s) -
FANE GEORGE
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4932.1991.tb02560.x
Subject(s) - numéraire , economics , liberian dollar , welfare , foreign exchange , microeconomics , social cost , social welfare , monetary economics , econometrics , market economy , finance , political science , law
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