Do impact assessments influence transport plans? The case of Sweden

Cost-benefit analysis

“…The broad picture is that these studies show that there is no significant statistical relation between the monetized effect estimations in CBA studies and political decisions. The exception is the Swedish Transport Administration's selection in the construction of the Investment Plans 2010-2021 and 2018 -2029, which seemed to be strongly affected by CBA results (Bondemark et al, 2020;Eliasson et al, 2015). However, decisions of Swedish politicians were only weakly affected by these recommendations, and only for small projects (Eliasson et al, 2015).…”

Op zoek naar een verbeeldend utilisme

“…Het instrument kan worden gebruikt om projecten te optimaliseren (Eliasson & Lundberg, 2012). Uit Zweeds onderzoek blijkt dat de resultaten van de MKBA ook de adviezen van ambtenaren aan de politiek beïnvloeden (Eliasson & Lundberg, 2012;Eliasson, Börjesson, Odeck, & Welde, 2015;Bondemark, Sundbergh, P, Tornberg, & Brundell-Freij, 2020). Daarnaast zorgt een MKBA voor een scherper politiek debat.…”

The Impact of Career Concerns and Cognitive Dissonance on Bureaucrats’ Use of Benefit-Cost Analysis

“…They also give examples of regulations where the costs probably exceeded the benefits. Bondemark et al (2020) study the impact of alternative analyses, namely the distributional and goal fulfilment analyses on the choice of transport infrastructure projects in Sweden. They note that interviewed planners have concerns about the way these analyses are designed, that the analyses lack nuance, and that there is no consensus on how to perform the analyses.…”