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Just for the sake of looking at what good intent might have caused this decision.. I would argue that, in periods of scarcity, it makes sense to prioritize pub

Just for the sake of looking at what good intent might have caused this decision.. I would argue that, in periods of scarcity, it makes sense to prioritize public spending on what has a more tangible economic ROI. I recognize that I am extrapolating from the fact that STEM related jobs tend to be more remunerative than social science. I could not find any literature regarding ROI of research programs.

wpietri 2y ago
We aren't particularly in a period of scarcity. New Zealand's a rich country with a stable GDP. Also, ROI is the wrong frame to use for government activity. If something has significant short-term ROI, then normal commercial capital's a good match. If it has large long-term ROI, then that's VC's domain. It's government's job to make investments in public goods, things that don't have ROI in the sense usually meant here.
- akoboldfrying 2y ago
  I don't really agree with your characterisation of ROI. Every potential decision outcome has a ROI (which we mostly don't know in advance, though we can often guess). The investments for which we need governments are those that won't ever work in the private sector due to misaligned incentives (no company will pay out of its own pocket to educate young children, not because there's no ROI overall but because it's much too diffuse -- the ROI for that company is extremely low). People can disagree about whether government should also make some investments that would also be made by self-interested people/companies.
  - wpietri 2y ago
    ROI is very much a business term of art. And that's how it's mostly used here in this little venture-capital supported niche. I agree one can broaden it to mean something much vaguer, using it metaphorically. But A) I think we at least have to explicitly distinguish that, and B) I think casting societal questions in business terms is a perilously wrong frame, one easily leading to all sorts of errors of thought, ones that have negative social implications. Just as an example, we could take Elon Musk's recent swipe at funding to fight homelessness. There he uses a common business framing and ends up with some conclusions that are deranged from the point of view of people actually working on the problem. Which wouldn't matter much if he were some random internet commenter, but here his error could have a significant body count.
- Dansvidania 2y ago
  if we define direct ROI as the canonical monetary gain that private entities tend to optimize for, and then _indirect ROI_ as something that might cause monetary gain because of second or nth order consequence, then I was mostly referring to indirect ROI. I tend to agree with you that public spending would be wasted or even misdirected in optimizing for direct ROI (EG prison system, education, healthcare...) I should have better specified in my original response.

wpietri 2y ago

We aren't particularly in a period of scarcity. New Zealand's a rich country with a stable GDP. Also, ROI is the wrong frame to use for government activity. If something has significant short-term ROI, then normal commercial capital's a good match. If it has large long-term ROI, then that's VC's domain. It's government's job to make investments in public goods, things that don't have ROI in the sense usually meant here.

akoboldfrying 2y ago
I don't really agree with your characterisation of ROI. Every potential decision outcome has a ROI (which we mostly don't know in advance, though we can often guess). The investments for which we need governments are those that won't ever work in the private sector due to misaligned incentives (no company will pay out of its own pocket to educate young children, not because there's no ROI overall but because it's much too diffuse -- the ROI for that company is extremely low). People can disagree about whether government should also make some investments that would also be made by self-interested people/companies.
- wpietri 2y ago
  ROI is very much a business term of art. And that's how it's mostly used here in this little venture-capital supported niche. I agree one can broaden it to mean something much vaguer, using it metaphorically. But A) I think we at least have to explicitly distinguish that, and B) I think casting societal questions in business terms is a perilously wrong frame, one easily leading to all sorts of errors of thought, ones that have negative social implications. Just as an example, we could take Elon Musk's recent swipe at funding to fight homelessness. There he uses a common business framing and ends up with some conclusions that are deranged from the point of view of people actually working on the problem. Which wouldn't matter much if he were some random internet commenter, but here his error could have a significant body count.
Dansvidania 2y ago
if we define direct ROI as the canonical monetary gain that private entities tend to optimize for, and then _indirect ROI_ as something that might cause monetary gain because of second or nth order consequence, then I was mostly referring to indirect ROI. I tend to agree with you that public spending would be wasted or even misdirected in optimizing for direct ROI (EG prison system, education, healthcare...) I should have better specified in my original response.