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Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis

Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis

Tools of the Trade
Elgar Guides to Teaching
Edited by Scott Farrow, Professor of Economics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, US
Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis provides detail and inspiration that extends and clarifies standard textbooks. Each short, self-contained module includes guidance to additional sources while many also provide class exercises. Classes for advanced undergraduates, practitioners, or Masters students could especially apply these tools of the trade.

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Extent: 264 pp
Hardback Price: $130.00 Web: $117.00
Publication Date: 2018
ISBN: 978 1 78643 531 6
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Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis is a unique look at the insights of internationally recognized teachers, researchers and practitioners addressing a difficult and controversial subject. Each chapter presents a self-contained module that includes guidance to additional resources, and many contain class exercises to provide detail and inspiration that extends beyond the scope of standard textbooks.

The social evaluation of public investments by governments, international organizations and non-profits is an expanding field that encompasses both new and established areas of social policy. This book expands on the methods and issues central to the study of benefit-cost analysis, with specific topics including risk, societal distribution of impacts, limited versus national effects, the statistical value of a life and more.

This book’s focus on classroom engagement makes it a valuable resource for teachers of benefit-cost analysis. Its attention to foundational and advanced concepts will be of interest to undergraduate or Master’s-level students of public policy, economics and related areas, as well as professional economists who apply benefit-cost analysis in their work.

Critical Acclaim

‘As the feasibility of using benefit-cost analysis (BCA) as a practical tool of policy analysis has increased, so too has the need for materials to aid those of us who are called upon to teach BCA. Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis: Tools of the Trade, edited by Scott Farrow, is a distinctive and welcome addition to the collection of such materials.'
– On Balance Review

Contributors

Contributors: C. Belfield, W.K. Bellinger, A. Brooks Bowden, G. Catalano, C. Dockins, S.E. Dudley, S. Farrow, M. Florio, D. Greenberg, C. Griffiths, A.C. Harberger, P.-O. Johansson, B. Kristrom, K. Krutilla, H.M. Levin, J. Mendeloff, C. Pancotti, E. Quinet, L.A. Robinson, D. Salkever, S. Shapiro, N. Treich, D. Weimer, R.O. Zerbe










Contents

Contents:

Preface: Teaching Benefit-Cost Analysis

PART I The Big Picture
1. Decision Rules
William K. Bellinger

2. Triangles and All That
Arnold C. Harberger

3. Defining the Baseline
Charles Griffiths and Chris Dockins

4. The Concept of Standing in Benefit-Cost Analysis
Richard O. Zerbe

5. Partial Equilibrium versus General Equilibrium Evaluations or Small versus Large Projects
Per-Olov Johansson and Bengt Kriström

6. Benefit-cost Analysis and US Regulatory Review: Finding a Market Failure
Susan E. Dudley

7. The Essentials: A Short Course for Young Professionals
Gelsomina Catalano and Massimo Florio

PART II Challenging Concepts and Examples
8. Valuing Statistical Lives
Lisa A. Robinson

9. The Arithmetic of Efficiency—Or the Value of Marginal Analysis
John Mendeloff

10. Treatment of Employing and Disemploying Workers
David Greenberg

11. Uncertainty and Risk
Nicholas Treich

12. On defining and valuing the benefits of health policy interventions: How and why CEA in health morphed into CU(B)A and “back-door” BCA
David Salkever

13. Harmful Addiction
David Weimer

14. Supplementing Benefit-Cost Analysis: Models for Transport and Land Use Decisions
Emile Quinet

15. Evaluating Knowledge Projects and R&D Infrastructures with an Example
Massimo Florio and Chiara Pancotti

16. Cost Estimation in Education: the Ingredients Method
Clive Belfield, A. Brooks Bowden and Henry M. Levin

17. Distributional Accounting in Benefit-Cost Analysis
Kerry Krutilla

18. Case Studies in the Classroom: Lessons Learned
Stuart Shapiro

19. Simulation: Incorporating Uncertainty
Scott Farrow

Index