Incommensurability and Cost-Benefit Analysis

a governmental project are reduced to monetary sums and then aggregated, with total money costs subtracted from total money benefits, so that the project ultimately is assigned a single net money amount, positive or negative, the sign of which is in turn taken by the analyst as a significant (if not conclusive) indicator that the project should or should not be approved.1 This type of analysis has become widely used.2 In 1981, President Reagan issued an executive order enjoining federal agencies that "[r]egulatory action ... not be undertaken unless the potential benefits to society for the regulation outweigh the potential costs to society,"3 and requiring the submission of reports detailing the costs and benefits of large projects to a presidential oversight agency, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).4 In 1993, President Clinton replaced the Reagan order with a new one,