Scarcity and choice
As a prelude to my intended discussion of the 2013 Annual National Budget after it is presented to the National Assembly later this month, in last week’s column I had started an appraisal of the management of government investment spending in Guyana. I began with a discussion of the limited funds (or scarcity of public resources) available to all governments and the need therefore, for them to make choices when seeking to satisfy what are effectively the unlimited wants (desires) that exist everywhere.
I sought to establish that, from the perspective of government spending (investment), the economic (opportunity) cost of this spending is measured by what is lost from the next best possible alternative use of those funds,