Cost and Choice¶
Buchanan, J. M. (1969). Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory. Markham Publishing.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Opportunity Cost
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This sourceSubjectivist (Austrian school) reformulation emphasising decision-specific opportunity cost.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
The work presents opportunity cost as subjective: costs exist only in the “eye of the beholder”, as envisioned “alternatives” that are never brought into existence. Buchanan draws the same line the sentence draws, allowing that an observer could “make an objective estimate of the minutes of resource time” but not “accurately estimate the value that you might place on your own lost opportunities”. Cost is thus tied to the chooser's own foregone options. The passages held do not argue the sentence's closing contrast with what is objectively or historically true, and one of them records that subjective opportunity costs are themselves “explained” by objective transformation rates.
“As a subjectivist, Buchanan insists that opportunity costs exist only in the “eye of the beholder” as envisioned “alternatives” that are never brought into existence.”
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Mechanisms¶
- Capacity Investment Analysis
- It quietly ignores opportunity cost when the slate is narrow: the real cost of funding one option is the next-best relief it displaces, and a comparison that omits the alternatives can't see it.
This sourceDefines opportunity cost as the value of the best alternative sacrificed when one option is chosen.
- It quietly ignores opportunity cost when the slate is narrow: the real cost of funding one option is the next-best relief it displaces, and a comparison that omits the alternatives can't see it.
- Opportunity Cost Reflection
- By making that cost explicit, it restores the symmetry that calibration requires: inaction is a decision with consequences, priced the same as action.
This sourceDefines opportunity cost as the anticipated value forgone when one course is chosen instead of another, including nonmarket choices.
- By making that cost explicit, it restores the symmetry that calibration requires: inaction is a decision with consequences, priced the same as action.
Verification¶
Does it exist? Not checked yet. This entry carries no identifier to resolve. It was extracted from the citation as written in the article, normalized, and deduplicated against the rest of the registry.
Does it back the claim? Read against the text for 1 of 3 citations: 1 supported in part. Each verdict is shown under its citation below, with what in the work backs the sentence.
Support is checked per citation rather than per work — the same source can be cited soundly in one article and wrongly in another. Per-citation recording began recently, so a citation with no recorded check is a gap in the record rather than evidence it went unchecked.
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Registry ID ref:388e7462569d · see in the full table