La evaluación social de los proyectos industriales según "Guidelines for project evaluation" de UNIDO

Abstract

Professors Dasgupta, Marglin and Sen have published Guidelines for Project Evaluation under the auspices of UNIDO. This book represents the experience accumulated by this international agency in the field of benefit -cost analysis of industrial projects. This paper analyzes critically the interrelations "Plan-Project-Plan" defined by Guidelines and the "national parameters" which include "merit wants" and "shadow prices". Both types of parameters are fundamental for the proposed methodology of social evaluation of industrial projects. Guidelines gives the "Social rate of discout" ("merit want") a central role due to the fact that besides playing its own role as a rate of discount for future consumption is an essential element for the definition of the shadow price of investment and labor. It is also discussed the idea that there is a certain "insufficiency" of savings in the economy. Guidelines shares the thesis of others authors asserting that the selection of projects must be done taking into account their ability to generate savings, which in underdeveloped countries are supposed to have a social value higher than consumption. The social evaluation of industrial projects must assume a certain institutional framework and in fact Guidellines implicitly assumes a particular one. This paper crucially question whether the institutional framework adopted is the most relevant at leaft for Latin America.