Definition
How much cost an actor can move onto others, onto whom, for how long, held in place by what, while keeping the gain. A person who keeps a colleague waiting and a firm whose discharge policy moves a week of work into every patient's household both shift a cost. Treating them as the same thing loses most of what matters: scale, duration, whether the receiving party can refuse, and what enforces the transfer.
The term follows the gain as well as the burden. An arrangement that moves a cost out of an institution's accounts leaves a saving with someone, and that party has a reason to keep the cost where it landed. Where costs settle repeatedly on the same kinds of people, the pattern usually reflects who could refuse and who could not. The preserved dependence entry covers the case where an institution knows the cost and keeps it.
Tests that show it is in place
- For each actor that shifts cost, the record names who receives it, how long the transfer lasts, and what holds it in place.
- The record names who keeps the saving, so the party that would pay if the cost were returned is identifiable.
- The receiving parties' ability to refuse is stated, and a refusal route is shown to work before it counts.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: An actor record listing who receives shifted costs, the duration, and what backs the transfer.
- Behavior: A transfer that persists after the receiving party has objected.
- Metric: Share of recurring compensatory items whose saving is booked by an actor the cost bearers cannot refuse.
References
- Insulation · Theory