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The cost of saving babies: How economists justify policies

Abstract The relationship between economic ideas and public policy is a growing area of sociological inquiry. This paper examines a unique case of economic influence on policy: use of cost-effectiveness analysis in assessing the expansion of newborn screening programmes. Unlike other forms of influence in which economic ideas precede the creation of new policies and are used to aid policy-making, in this case, economics is used to justify newborn screening expansion post-hoc. We describe cost-effectiveness analysis as a technology of economic justification, and we examine how its assembly, standardization and application is the result of compromises made by researchers navigating the tension between standardized guidelines and unreliable data sources.