Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Informal Introduction

Should Malaysia build a new steel mill, or New York City an urban motorway? Should higher education expand, or water supplies be improved? These are typical questions about which cost-benefit analysis has something to say. It is the main tool that economics provides for analyzing problems of social choice. It also provides a useful vehicle for understanding the practical value of welfare economics. This book covers the main problems that arise in a typical cost-benefit exercise. Cost-benefit analysis is used everywhere, but its techniques are particularly prominent in fields where there is some kind of ethical dimension - chief of these would be health and the environment, but all branches of the public sector are prone to it including transport economics. For this edition, E. J. Mishan has been joined by Euston Quah. New themes explored include the impact of game theory on cost-benefit analysis and a host of new and up-to-date case studies are introduced.