دانلود رایگان مقاله پیش بینی تاثیر اجتماعی و اقتصادی LHC: تجزیه و تحلیل هزینه-سود تا سال 2025 و فراتر از آن

abstract

In this paper we develop a cost–benefit analysis of a major research infrastructure, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the highest-energy accelerator in the world, currently operating at CERN. We show that the evaluation of benefits can be made quantitative by estimating their welfare effects on different types of agents. Four classes of direct benefits are identified, according to the main social groups involved: (a) scientists; (b) students and young researchers; (c) firms in the procurement chain and other organizations; and (d) the general public, including onsite and website visitors and other media users. These benefits are respectively related to the knowledge output of scientists; human capital formation; technological spillovers; and direct cultural effects for the general public. Welfare effects for taxpayers can also be estimated by the contingent valuation of the willingness to pay for a pure public good for which there is no specific direct use (i.e., as non-use value). Using a Monte Carlo approach, we estimate the conditional probability distribution of costs and benefits for the LHC from 1993 until its planned decommissioning in 2025, assuming a range of values for some critical stochastic variables. We conservatively estimate that there is around a 90% probability that benefits exceed costs, with an expected net present value of about 2.9 billion euro, not considering the unpredictable applications of scientific discovery.

11. Summary of results and concluding remarks

Based on the forecasts of social costs and benefits in the previous sections, we have determined the probability distribution of the net present value of the LHC as for Eq. (3) by running a Monte Carlo simulation (10,000 draws conditional to the PDF of the nineteen stochastic variables mentioned above26). Each draw generates an NPV estimate in a state of the world supported by a random set of the possible values taken by the model stochastic variables. The number of variables we have considered for the Monte Carlo simulation and the number of draws are largely in excess of what is usually done in the evaluation of large-scale investment projects by international and national bodies (Florio, 2014; OECD, 2015), e.g., for high-speed rail infrastructure that faces considerable uncertainty and optimism bias (Flyvbjerg et al., 2003). While we have been prudent, and even pessimistic, in our assumptions, caution is necessary in the interpretation of the final results, which we will briefly summarize and discuss here. As with any forecast covering the long run, there is obviously some residual uncertainty, but we are confident that residual estimation errors are mostly in the direction of underestimating the net social benefit of the LHC. This was deliberate, as we have preferred to be conservative.