Gainsto

Gainsto is a term used in welfare economics to denote the total net gains to all affected parties from a policy or action, aggregated into a single metric. It is a neologism intended to emphasize a holistic view of welfare effects, including direct financial benefits as well as indirect and non-market impacts such as health, environmental quality, and social well-being.

Definition and scope: Gainsto is defined as the sum over individuals of their change in welfare attributable to the policy, plus relevant non-market externalities and public goods adjustments, often expressed in a common unit such as a monetary equivalent. The concept can be extended to incorporate intertemporal effects through discounting and to account for uncertainty in outcomes.

Calculation and challenges: Implementing gainsto requires identifying beneficiaries and costs, quantifying changes in utility or willingness to pay, and aggregating these changes across affected groups. Practical challenges include measuring non-market benefits, choosing appropriate utility metrics, dealing with distributional weights, and addressing methodological uncertainty.

用途 and purpose: The term highlights a comprehensive assessment of welfare impacts, aiming to capture benefits and costs that conventional analyses may overlook. It is not yet a standardized or universally adopted metric and appears mainly in theoretical discussions, policy blogs, and exploratory writings rather than formal practice.

Relation to other concepts: Gainsto relates to the notions of total welfare, net benefits to society, and social welfare functions, but remains distinct as a term and is not universally recognized in standard cost-benefit frameworks.

Origins and usage: Gainsto emerged in contemporary economic discourse as a shorthand to promote broader consideration of welfare effects, rather than as a fixed, universally defined methodology.