Cost Benefit Analysis

Anthony Boardman Anthony E. Boardman is the Van Dusen Professor of Business Administration at the University of British Columbia. His publications on cost-benefit analysis have appeared in many leading academic journals including the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Annals of Regional Science, and the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis Research and Practice. He has also served as a consultant for the Treasury of New Zealand and all levels of government in Canada.  David Weimer David L. Weimer is professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He has published work involving the application of cost-benefit analysis to energy policy and the use of contingent valuation surveys.  He also has contributed entries on cost-benefit analysis to the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences and the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2nd edition). Aidan R. Vining Aidan R. Vining is the CNABS Professor of Business and Government Relations in the Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) and holds a Ph.D. from the Goldman Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.  His articles related to cost-benefit analysis have appeared in a wide range of journals.  In addition to authoring these articles, Dr. Vining is the author of Policy Analysis; Concepts and Practice with David Weimer (4th. Edition, Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2005) and has recently co-edited Building the Future: Issues in Public Infrastructure in Canada (C.D. Howe) which analyzes the costs and benefits of major infrastructure projects in Canada.  Over the last twenty five years, he has taught numerous courses and seminars on cost-benefit analysis and policy analysis to government analysts in countries around the world  David Greenberg David Greenberg is a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).  In 2002 he worked as a labor market analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit within the British Cabinet Office, helping design a random assignment evaluation of a pilot program that attempts to help retain disadvantaged workers in employment and aid their advancement and is currently working on the cost-benefit analysis of this pilot program.  In addition, he is presently responsible for the cost-benefit analyses of two on-going U.K. programs: the New Deal for Disabled Persons and has taught a course in cost-benefit analysis at UMBC for many years.

 

Part I: Overview

 

1. Introduction to Cost-Benefit Analysis

 

2. Conceptual Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis

 

Part II: Fundamentals of Cost-Benefit Analysis

 

3. Basic Microeconomic Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis

 

4. Valuing Benefits and Costs in Primary Markets

 

5. Valuing Benefits and Costs in Secondary Markets

 

6. Discounting Benefits and Costs in Future Time Periods

 

7. Dealing with Uncertainty: Expected Value, Sensitivity Analysis, and the Value of Information

 

8. Option Price and Option Value

 

9. Existence Value

 

10. The Social Discount Rate

 

Part III: Valuation of Impacts

 

11. Valuing Impacts from Observed Behavior: Demonstrations

 

12. Valuing Impacts from Observed Behavior: Direct Estimation of Demand Curves

 

13. Valuing Impacts from Observed Behavior: Other Revealed Preference Methods

 

14. Contingent Valuation: Using Surveys to Elicit Information About Costs and Benefits

 

15. Shadow Prices from Secondary Sources

 

16. Shadow Prices: Applications to Developing Countries

 

Part IV: Related Methods and Accuracy

 

17. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

 

18. Distributionally Weighted Cost-Benefit Analysis


19. How Accurate is CBA?

 

A Selected Cost-Benefit Analysis Bibliography

 

Name Index

 

Subject Index