The Conceptualisation of Output and Cost-Benefit Evaluation for Leisure Facilities

Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses have become widely used tools for the justification of leisure-related expenditures, but are based on a number of inadequate assumptions. The narrow conceptualisations both of outputs and of inputs, and an oversimplified production function linking them are the main problems. Participation is usually assumed to provide an adequate measure of output or benefit accruing to the participant, but it is a measure neither of demand nor of supply, and it ignores the individual-level production that is so characteristic of services. Inputs have previously been equated with resources, to the neglect of nonresource influences on output. An alternative ‘production of welfare’ approach is described, and its implications for cost-benefit evaluations—and for efficiency studies generally—are examined.