double counting



  • noun the counting of a cost or benefit element twice when doing analysis. This can happen when calculating the total sales in a market as the sum of all sales made by firms, without deducting the purchases firms make from other firms in the market.

Health Economics

  • (written as Double Counting)
    This is a hazard in any method of appraising options. There are three common forms: simple errors due to incorrect arithmetic, suspicious circumstances due to fraudulent accounting practices and subtler forms due to inadequate conceptual clarity, poor administrative records or poor accounting of resource costs.