Abstract
The idea underlying the notion of social cost is a very simple one. A man initiating an action does not necessarily bear all the costs (or reap all the benefits) himself. Those that he does bear are private costs; those he does not are external costs. The sum of the two constitutes the social cost.
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de V. Graaff, J. (2018). Social Cost. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1459
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1459
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