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As always, my starting place is The Oxford English Dictionary. There I find a reference to cost-
effective in the entry for cost:
cost-effective adj. designating or pertaining to a project, etc., that is effective in terms of its cost.
The first OED citation given for cost-effective is dated 1967. I find no entry for cost-efficient.
Merriam-Webster Unabridged provides entries for both terms:
cost-effective adjective: economical in terms of tangible benefits produced by money spent.
cost-efficient adjective: cost-effective.
The most that can be said is that one is more common than the other.
The OED and M-W date the terms from 1967 and 1970, but the Ngram Viewer shows that cost-
effective was present in printed sources as early as 1836. Both terms are documented in works
printed in 1887. Cost-effective shows a bump on the graph in the 1940s, but then both terms
remain more or less even until the 1960s, when cost-effective soars ahead.
A Google search also shows a preference for cost-effective:
“cost-effective”: about 83,600,000 results
“cost-efficient”: about 7,840,000 results
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Applying this definition to cost-effective vs. cost-efficient (and combining it with the business
literature, especially accounting), my interpretation would be: cost-effective = s.th. generates or
triggers costs, while something done in a cost-efficient way is something done the most
economical way.
However, while I would point out this difference to the author whose article I am refereeing for a
business/economics journal, I am indifferent to it outside the academic world.
Let me also use this opportunity to thank you for all your hard work providing us with these posts. I
am certain they make a difference in what is out there to read, and I sure hope it continues to do
so.
To me, a cost-effective measure only seems synonymous to a cost-efficient one insofar as “cost
effectiveness” (the quality of something being successfully costed, as in having its price being
successfully estimated/determined), and “cost efficiency” (the quality of achieving maximum utility
with minimum wasted effort) run parallel to each other. For contrary example, where successful
costing is defined as outbidding a slew of competitors, one is cost-effective by seeking to know the
competition’s price so as to outbid it with the highest possible price, but, in so doing, one is not
necessarily being cost-efficient.
However, the compound cost-efficient doesn’t work like the previous, and it even sounds a bit
weird, as the word efficient itself is about cost, time spent, or energy used. So I think cost-efficient
means efficient, while indicating it’s about cost (not time, not energy).
Conclusion: cost-effective equals cost-efficient.
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