Benefit–Cost Ratio Analysis

Abstract

TheBenefits design, implementation, and management of major service systems (agricultural, cybersecurity, energy, health care, information networks, infrastructure, legal, military, public services, safety, etc., as distinguished from small business services) with long lives (10-plus or 20-plus years) and associated intangible benefits and costs are not amenable to singular economic criterion analysis requiring accurate and precise cash flows. Often, the intangible costs and benefits of major systems are not fully known. Major public sector service systems, however, are foundational in that without their existence the private industrial and small business sectors would not be economically viable. Hence, engineering managers need a broader criterion that more completely accounts for the tangible and intangible benefits and costs of major service systems.