Department of Applied Economics' academic seminar

Dear colleagues,

 Department of Applied Economics  invites you to attend the academic seminar that will be held on 01 December, 2016  at 1.40 p.m. Venue: Shabolovka 26, room 3211.

Speaker:  Maria Sheluntsova,  Assistant Professor of our Department.

 Her presentation's topic: " Evaluating performance of public sector projects in Russia: The choice of a social discount rate"
                                             
Abstract:
" Solving socially important problems requires implementation of effective investment decisions. Scarcity of budget resources creates the problem of selecting projects to be financed. A prerequisite to ensure the effectiveness of budget expenditures is availability of an evaluation criterion that allows to compare competing investment projects. In the private sector, this criterion is net present value, and an instrument to discount costs and benefits is market discount rate. However, market rate is not applicable for discounting social costs and benefits because of market failures. In the Russian practice, the evaluation of public sector projects is carried out without discounting. This approach may lead to acceptance of unviable investment decisions. Thus, there is the need for a social discount rate that enables decision-makers to discount social benefits and costs of public sector projects. We present methods of social discount rate evaluation and their applications for Russia. Finally, we provide values of a social discount rate that might be used in evaluating performance of public sector projects in our country ".