gate consumers' plus producers' surplus. ... Second was Samuelson's theory of public goods ... finding that their valuation must be based on vertical aggregation of individual demand curves (1994, p. 37).
As can be rather clearly perceived from the overview perspective of macro-economic study, the process described by Hanemann was nurtured in a political environment that based its economic decisions upon a Keynesian approach, an approach that considered the "public welfare" and activist government involvement inextricably bound together. It is no hidden political secret, however, that the past two decades have seen the rise of an opposing, at times predominant, macro-economic approach, one generally defined in terms of the "Chicago School" and typified by economist Milton Friedman. The Chicago School cannot be held responsible for all of its permutations and misinterpretations; nevertheless, as a generalization, the Chicago School of politico-economic approach considers "market value" to be the overriding consideration; public welfare benefits only as market forces
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