Benefit–Cost Analysis

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Benefit–Cost Analysis

9781847209641 Edward Elgar Publishing
Edited by Richard O. Zerbe Jr., Daniel J. Evans Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Director, Benefit–Cost Analysis Center, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Washington, Seattle, US
Publication Date: 2008 ISBN: 978 1 84720 964 1 Extent: 1,088 pp
Benefit–cost analysis is at heart a subject of practicality and usefulness. With this in mind, the editor has chosen the most relevant previously published articles for these volumes. Having explored the theoretical and ethical underpinnings of the subject, the book then addresses some major policy issues and debates. These include the institutional arrangements through which benefit–cost analyses would be most useful to the policy and decision process, the need for a set of principles and standards to unify benefit–cost analysis methods, the use of general equilibrium analysis and the proper treatment of uncertainty and risk.

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Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
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Benefit–cost analysis is at heart a subject of practicality and usefulness. With this in mind, the editor has chosen the most relevant previously published articles for these volumes. Having explored the theoretical and ethical underpinnings of the subject, the book then addresses some major policy issues and debates. These include the institutional arrangements through which benefit–cost analyses would be most useful to the policy and decision process, the need for a set of principles and standards to unify benefit–cost analysis methods, the use of general equilibrium analysis and the proper treatment of uncertainty and risk.

In his new introduction, the editor offers his own particular viewpoint and raises issues which will intrigue both academics and practitioners.
Critical Acclaim
‘A massive, impressive, thorough, exploration of the theoretical, practical and ethical underpinnings of the subject based on previously published material.’
– Long Range Planning
Contributors
51 articles, dating from 1938 to 2007
Contributors include: S. Farrow, L. Goulder, A. Harberger, D. Kahneman, C. Kling, J. Knetsch, R.B. Palmquist, V.K. Smith, M. Weitzman, J. Zhao
Contents
Contents:

Volume I

Acknowledgements

Introduction Richard O. Zerbe

PART I CLASSIC HISTORICAL ARTICLES
1. Harold Hotelling (1938), ‘The General Welfare in Relation to Problems of Taxation and of Railway and Utility Rates’
2. Lionel Robbins (1938), ‘Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: A Comment’
3. Nicholas Kaldor (1939), ‘Welfare Propositions of Economics and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility’
4. J.R. Hicks (1939), ‘The Foundations of Welfare Economics’
5. Tibor de Scitovszky (1941), ‘A Note on Welfare Propositions in Economics’
6. Paul A. Samuelson (1950), ‘Evaluation of Real National Income’
7. John V. Krutilla (1961), ‘Welfare Aspects of Benefit-Cost Analysis’
8. Arnold C. Harberger (1971), ‘Three Basic Postulates for Applied Welfare Economics: An Interpretive Essay’
9. Robin W. Boadway (1974), ‘The Welfare Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis’
10. E.J. Mishan (1982), ‘The New Controversy about the Rationale of Economic Evaluation’

PART II HISTORY OF USE
11. Theodore M. Porter (1995), ‘U.S. Army Engineers and the Rise of Cost–Benefit Analysis’
12. Richard D. Morgenstern (1997), ‘The Legal and Institutional Setting for Economic Analysis at EPA’

PART III PHILOSOPHY AND FOUNDATION
13. Steven Kelman (1981), ‘Cost–Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique’
14. Gerard Butters, John Calfee and Pauline Ippolito (1981), ‘Defending Cost–Benefit Analysis: Replies to Steven Kelman’
15. Dale Whittington and Duncan MacRae, Jr. (1986), ‘The Issue of Standing in Cost-Benefit Analysis’
16. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (1998), ‘Is Cost–Benefit Analysis Legal? Three Rules’
17. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr., Yoram Bauman and Aaron Finkle (2006), ‘An Aggregate Measure for Benefit–Cost Analysis’

PART IV FACTORS AFFECTING WILLINGNESS TO PAY AND ACCEPT
18. Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch and Richard H. Thaler (1990), ‘Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem’
19. W. Michael Hanemann (1991), ‘Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: How Much Can They Differ?’
20. John K. Horowitz and Kenneth E. McConnell (2002), ‘A Review of WTA/WTP Studies’
21. Jinhua Zhao and Catherine L. Kling (2004), ‘Willingness to Pay, Compensating Variation, and the Cost of Commitment’
22. Jack Knetsch (2007), ‘Biased Valuations, Damage Assessments, and Policy Choices: The Choice of Measure Matters’

PART V CONTINGENT VALUATION
23. Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch (1992), ‘Valuing Public Goods: The Purchase of Moral Satisfaction’
24. V. Kerry Smith (1992), ‘Arbitrary Values, Good Causes, and Premature Verdicts’
25. Daniel Kahneman and Jack L. Knetsch (1992), ‘Contingent Valuation and the Value of Public Goods: Reply’
26. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (1993), ‘Appendix I: Report of the NOAA Panel on Contingent Valuation’, excerpt from ‘Natural Resources Damage Assessments Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990’
27. W. Michael Hanemann (1994), ‘Valuing the Environment Through Contingent Valuation’

Name Index


Volume II

Acknowledgements

An introduction by the editor to both volumes appears in Volume I

PART I REVEALED PREFERENCE
1. V. Kerry Smith (1997), ‘Pricing What is Priceless: A Status Report on Non-Market Valuation of Environmental Resources’
2. Raymond B. Palmquist (2005), ‘Weak Complementarity, Path Independence, and the Intuition of the Willig Condition’

PART II GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM
3. John Whalley (1975), ‘How Reliable is Partial Equilibrium Analysis?’
4. Stephen J. Turnovsky, Haim Shalit and Andrew Schmitz (1980), ‘Consumer’s Surplus, Price Instability, and Consumer Welfare’
5. Michael Hazilla and Raymond J. Kopp (1990), ‘Social Cost of Environmental Quality Regulations: A General Equilibrium Analysis’
6. Lawrence H. Goulder and Roberton C. Williams III (2003), ‘The Substantial Bias from Ignoring General Equilibrium Effects in Estimating Excess Burden, and a Practical Solution’
7. V. Kerry Smith, Holger Sieg, H. Spencer Banzhaf and Randall P. Walsh (2004), ‘General Equilibrium Benefits for Environmental Improvements: Projected Ozone Reductions under EPA’s Prospective Analysis for the Los Angeles Air Basin’

PART III DISCOUNT RATES
8. Tjalling C. Koopmans (1965), ‘On the Concept of Optimal Economic Growth’
9. David F. Bradford (1975), ‘Constraints on Government Investment Opportunities and the Choice of Discount Rate’
10. Robert C. Lind (1999), ‘Analysis for Intergenerational Decisionmaking’
11. Martin L. Weitzman (2001), ‘Gamma Discounting’
12. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (2004), ‘Should Moral Sentiments be Incorporated into Benefit–Cost Analysis? An Example of Long-Term Discounting’
13. Mark A. Moore, Anthony E. Boardman, Aidan R. Vining, David L. Weimer and David H. Greenberg (2004), ‘“Just Give Me a Number!” Practical Values for the Social Discount Rate’

PART IV RISK AND UNCERTAINTY IN ANALYSIS
14. Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic and Sarah Lichtenstein (1979), ‘Weighing the Risks’
15. Alonzo Plough and Sheldon Krimsky (1987), ‘The Emergence of Risk Communication Studies: Social and Political Context’
16. Robert A. Pollak (1996), ‘Government Risk Regulation’
17. Jonathan Baert Wiener and John D. Graham (1995), ‘Resolving Risk Tradeoffs’
18. National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Risk-Based Analysis for Flood Damage Reduction (2000), ‘Beargrass Creek’
19. Richard O. Zerbe, Jr. (2001), ‘6.7 Fairness and the Regard for Others’, from ‘The Problem of Missing Values in Normative Law and Economic Analysis’
20. Scott Farrow (2004), ‘Using Risk Assessment, Benefit–Cost Analysis, and Real Options to Implement a Precautionary Principle’
21. Richard A. Williams and Kimberly M. Thompson (2004), ‘Integrated Analysis: Combining Risk and Economic Assessments While Preserving the Separation of Powers’

PART V SELECT METHODOLOGICAL ARTICLES
22. Charles J. Cicchetti, A. Myrick Freeman III, Robert H. Haveman and Jack L. Knetsch (1971), ‘On the Economics of Mass Demonstrations: A Case Study of the November 1969 March on Washington’
23. Richard Carson, Nicholas E. Flores and W. Michael Hanemann (1998), ‘Sequencing and Valuing Public Goods’
24. Raymond B. Palmquist and V. Kerry Smith (2002), ‘The Use of Hedonic Property Value Techniques for Policy and Litigation’

Name Index
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