Updating the Benefit-Cost Model

In the Benefits and Costs of a Child Allowance (Garfinkel et al., 2022), published in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis (JBCA), the authors developed a model to calculate the benefits and costs of cash transfers to families with children. A key element of the model is the standardization of a wide variety of estimates across and within studies of impacts for an annual $1,000 increase in transfer income. Since then, we, the benefit-cost research group at Columbia’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, have built on this research focused on cash transfers for children and their families to estimate the benefits and costs of other policy reforms (e.g., see Hartley et al., 2022, on child care assistance) and we believe, and hope, that others may also build on this work in diverse ways. As new studies broaden and deepen our understanding of the impacts of cash and near-cash transfers or methods for estimating the benefits of cash and near-cash benefits, we will update the model periodically. This document records the refinements we have made to our model to date. For each update, we briefly summarize what has been updated, saving details for the appendix. 

Suggested Citation

Garfinkel, Irwin, Elizabeth Ananat, Sophie M. Collyer, Robert Paul Hartley, Buyi Wang, and Christopher Wimer. 2024. Updating the Benefit-Cost Model. New York: Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University.

Published on April 29, 2024