ABSTRACT

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 to which cost-benefit analysis, the key economic tool for analyzing problems of social choice can contribute to, as well as providing a useful vehicle for understanding the practical value of welfare economics. This invaluable text 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. For this edition, E.J. Mishan has been joined by Euston Quah, to explore new themes, including the impact of uncertainty on cost-benefit analysis and to introduce a host of new and up-to-date case studies.

part |2 pages

PART I Scope and method

chapter 1|5 pages

Introductory remarks

chapter 2|3 pages

Cost-effective analysis

chapter 3|10 pages

Proposals for weighting money valuations

part |2 pages

PART II Basic concepts of benefits and costs

chapter 4|9 pages

Measurements of consumer surplus

chapter 6|6 pages

Consumer surplus when other things change

chapter 8|6 pages

Measurements of rent

chapter 9|4 pages

Is producer surplus a rent?

part |2 pages

PART III Shadow prices and transfer payments

chapter 10|3 pages

Introductory remarks

chapter 11|5 pages

Opportunity cost of labour

chapter 12|3 pages

Opportunity cost of unemployed labour

chapter 14|5 pages

The opportunity costs of imports

chapter 15|4 pages

Transfer payments and double counting

part |2 pages

PART IV External effects

chapter 16|7 pages

Introduction to external effects

chapter 17|5 pages

Adverse spillovers: the complacent view

chapter 18|5 pages

Internalizing externalities

chapter 19|7 pages

Evaluating spillovers

chapter 20|8 pages

Compensating for environmental damage

part |2 pages

PART V Investment criteria

chapter 21|4 pages

Introduction to investment criteria

chapter 22|4 pages

Crude investment criteria

chapter 23|6 pages

The discounted present value criterion

chapter 24|4 pages

The internal rate of return

chapter 32|6 pages

The pareto criterion and generational time

part |2 pages

Part VI: Notes on particular goods

chapter 33|4 pages

The value of time saved

chapter 36|9 pages

The value of life

part |2 pages

PART VII Uncertainty

chapter 37|3 pages

Risk and certainty equivalence

chapter 38|4 pages

Game theory and decision rules (I)

chapter 39|6 pages

Game theory and decision rules (II)

chapter 41|3 pages

Simple probability in decision making

chapter 42|4 pages

Mixed strategies in decision making

part |2 pages

PART VIII Further notes

chapter 44|4 pages

A summing up

chapter |4 pages

Appendix 4: The problem of second-best

chapter 27|4 pages

9 political objectives