Environmental Cost-benefit Analysis Research Articles

The Use of Cost-Benefit Analysis to Decide Environmental Policy – a Dead End?

In this paper I discuss two questions which the decision maker has to consider before she makes use of the method of cost benefit analysis. First, she has to ask herself if she shares the ethical foundation of environmental cost benefit analysis. If not, could environmental cost benefit analysis be adjusted such that her ethical beliefs are incorporated? Second, if the decision maker shares the ethical foundation of environmental cost-benefit analysis, is this method appropriate when there are individuals in a society that hold other ethical beliefs than those implicitly assumed in an environmental cost-benefit analysis? When discussing these questions I focus on two different perspectives – the deontological and the agency aspect of individual preferences. I argue that the answer to both questions is «no», though the answer to the second question is not as clear as the answer to the first.

Relevance and consistency of environmental impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis project appraisal

This article is concerned with the relationship between environmental impact assessment (EIA) and cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in project appraisal. It argues that problems of both relevance and consistency can occur in certain appraisal and decision-making situations. Means by which some of these problems can be reduced or eliminated are examined

Historical perspective and environmental cost—benefit analysis: comment on Doeleman

Historical perspective and environmental cost—benefit analysis: comment on Doeleman

HIstorical perspective and environmental cost-benefit analysis

This article is concerned with the analytical as well as political strengths and weaknesses of the application of cost-benefit techniques in cases of environmentally sensitive projects, and highlights the historical perspective against which the rapid development of the modern age can be evaluated. When environmental conflict is considered in its historical/futurological dimension, a more deterministic point of view becomes acceptable. This point of view entails the notion that micro-environmental decision makers are compromised by macro-environmental parameters-both technological change and economic and demographic momentum-over which they have no control. Environmental policy, therefore, appears to call for macroenvironmental direction. In the absence of such direction, cost-benefit economists may find themselves forced to provide the right solutions for the wrong problems, with perhaps disconcerting prospects for the long-run future of the man-nature relationship.