Samhällsnyttan

Samhällsnyttan, or social benefit, is a concept used in Swedish public policy to describe the overall gain to society from a project or action. It covers economic effects such as productivity and employment, as well as non-economic outcomes like health, safety, environmental quality, and social cohesion. The term is often invoked in decision-making to indicate that a policy should increase the welfare of the population as a whole, not only deliver private gains to a particular group.

In practice, samhällsnyttan is assessed through methods such as cost-benefit analysis, which attempts to monetize as many impacts as feasible, supplemented by qualitative assessments for non-market effects. Public agencies may also use concepts like social return on investment or multi-criteria decision analysis to incorporate broader values. Important considerations include distributional effects, long-term impacts, and the choice of discount rate, all of which shape the estimated societal gain.

The concept rests on welfare economics, which treats social welfare as an aggregate of individual utilities or well-being. Critics argue that monetizing social values can be controversial, that structural inequalities may be underrepresented, and that the process may depend on subjective judgments. Proponents maintain that a transparent evaluation of samhällsnyttan improves accountability and evidence-based policymaking by making trade-offs explicit.