The economics of the America's Cup - did we lose or win?

A question I'm very pleased to see Sam Richardson asking. As I'm sure most of you will have heard by now the Minister for Economic Development has been going round saying that the taxpayer money that went into the America's Cup campaign was money well spent. I wonder if he has asked any taxpayers about that?

Well now Sam Richardson of the econ department at Massey, likely the best guy in the country to do this, has given the Market Economics Limited report, written for MED,  the once over. Richardson writes,

The Government's share of the total Team NZ revenues of approximately $180m was 20 percent (it was capped at $36 million), with 66 percent coming from overseas. The report found that the total outcome of $87 million to the New Zealand economy would not have occurred without the Government's involvement.

and he continues,

I'm not going to question the final point - it isn't unreasonable to assume that the Government's contribution was pivotal to the challenge - but then, one could also argue that it wouldn't have happened without the overseas or private domestic funding either. That being said, however, there are two aspects of this report that do require challenging.

Getting down to business Richardson writes,

First, attributing the entire economic impact of a project to a 20 percent contribution is something I (and many others) have a real problem with. You could just as easily credit the economic impact figure of $87 million to the overseas funding (and you could do so with confidence, as it is 'new money' and thus more likely to be beneficial to the New Zealand economy) more than the Government's investment. Still, it is not an easy issue to resolve. It's not as easy as saying that because the Government contributed 20 percent means it should be 'credited' with 20% of the economic impact. The combination of public and private funding makes attributing the economic impact to one or the other parts problematic. A more accurate statement would be that the entire project (regardless of where the money came from) generated $87 million in impacts. After all, the tax revenues generated by Team New Zealand were between $38 and $40 million.

The second issue is the absence of opportunity costs of public funding in the report, which would help us to determine to what extent the $87 million impact be considered an economic benefit, and therefore money well spent. If there was no Team New Zealand, would nothing have happened? Of course not - life (and the economy) would have continued to tick away as per usual. $36 million of taxpayers money went into this campaign. Public funding has alternative uses, which should at the very least be considered as part of an objective analysis. If there was no Team New Zealand, what would have happened to the $36 million in taxpayer funding that was invested there? Chances are it would have gone to some other worthy recipient, for example the health sector or the education sector. In order to determine whether the $36 million spent on the America's Cup was money well spent, we need to know what $36 million would do when put to an alternative use. If the $36 million for Team New Zealand returned a higher impact than, say, paying each and every New Zealander $8 as compensation for there being no Team New Zealand, then it might have been money well spent. Determining what the appropriate alternative use for $36 million is the subject of debate - and my example above is very much tongue in cheek - but one thing is for sure: it is certainly not nothing. $87 million is the economic impact with no alternative use of public (and other) funds. Is it realistic to attribute this as a benefit?

That all costs are opportunity costs is stage one stuff, all economists know this. So not considering opportunity costs and comparing the campaign outcome with alternative uses of the money is big miss and I find myself wonder why the report did it. Or is it the only way they could put a positive spin on the campaign?

Just asking.