Monthly Archives: November 2010

“Worthwhile public projects often generate negative taxpayer perspective returns, because the role of government is to provide services that the public wants but that the business sector may find unprofitable … But unlike most government endeavors funding for CSN generates strong results from both the social and taxpayer perspectives. Economists generally assume a 3% discount rate in analyzing government investments, assuming that governments can obtain unsecured loans at a rate of 3% or receive a 3% return on any excess funds, if they were invested. Since CSN’s taxpayer rate of return of 9.2% is greater than 3%, state and local governments actually make money on the investment. By funding the college, therefore, other recipients of state and local funding are actually subsidized through the revenues generated by the college.”
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