Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit
A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners
(and the State and Local Policy-Makers They Present to)
Decreasing Value of Benefits
Sometimes program benefits actually equal program costs, rendering what those focused on dollars might call a net benefit of zero. This zero benefit may be actual or may be the result of measuring a program’s effects in the short-term only.
Quite often there are long-term benefits to a prevention program, some taking place well into the future. But saving a dollar today means more today than saving a dollar in ten years means today.
Let’s say that the cost of that program will occur in its early stages, even in its first year, while its benefits could be taking place over a period of years including years past the termination of that particular program. These long, long-term benefits, appearing well after the program’s costs generating them have taken place, are described as “delayed benefits” or “decreasing value of benefits.” When cost-benefit analysis estimates these delayed benefits, the value of these delayed benefits is decreased to adjust for the delay. Again, saving a dollar today means more today than saving a dollar in ten years means today.