Role Of Cost-benefit Analysis Research Articles

Exploring the influence of profitability analysis on SME financing: A conceptual view

By allocating earnings and expenditures to each client independently, customer profitability analysis is a management accounting and credit underwriting tool that enables businesses and lenders to assess the profitability of individual customers or segments of customers. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) constitute the backbone of most economies and a key driver of economic expansion. This conceptual study surveys the literature on the subject in order to make assumptions that might be tested in subsequent research on the role of cost-benefit analysis in raising corporate performance. This is accomplished by referencing the viewpoints on financing small and medium-sized businesses as well as the fundamentals of strategic management accounting. The financial services sector, as well as the informal and formal sectors of the economy in every nation, would benefit greatly from an investigation into this issue. The originality of this conceptual study is in its contribution to the advancement of conceptual, methodological, and theoretical justification for the effects of profitability analysis funding of small and medium-sized enterprises. This will support the discussion in the present literature.

The Never-Ending Struggle for Reproductive Rights

For me, the annual Book Review issue is a time for reflection. It provides an opportunity to take stock of scholarly trends, reassess conventional wisdom, and gather new insights to apply to the practice of law. The reviews contained in this year’s issue address a wide range of subjects, including the history of public defenders, the use of bigotry rhetoric in conflicts over marriage and civil rights law, the role of cost-benefit analysis in federal policymaking, and racial inequities in tax policy. This impressive commentary on an astute and varied collection of books about the law will inspire many of us to pause and consider larger questions about our own work: Where do things stand? How did we get here? What comes next? My career has largely focused on reproductive rights. It is an area of the law that is perpetually at a crossroads and therefore always ripe for reflection. These rights, long recognized and deeply valued by a majority of Americans, are continually under attack and always—it would seem—on the brink of elimination. Almost from the day Roe v. Wade was decided, critics began calling for it to be overruled, and commentators began predicting its downfall. Although it has weathered the storm for nearly fifty years, those critics and commentators remain undeterred, still forecasting Roe’s imminent demise. And who knows? Perhaps this charged moment in our nation’s history, which seems increasingly like the dystopian future that prescient novelists warned of long ago, will see a disruption in constitutional protection for reproductive rights. Or perhaps the rights that have been central to the liberty and equality of women and gender-expansive people for half a century will continue to endure. In this Foreword, I would like to reflect on two aspects of reproductive rights law in particular. First, there is a seeming duality in the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence. On the surface, it embodies a longstanding commitment to safeguarding the right to abortion. But just below the surface, the caselaw reflects a deep tension between this commitment and the Court’s recognition that certain members of our society—some motivated by “unprincipled emotional reactions” and others motivated by “principles worthy of profound respect”—will never accept that the Constitution grants the authority to make decisions about the outcome of a pregnancy to the individual who is pregnant rather than to the government. Second, the abortion right has proven surprisingly durable despite powerful efforts to subvert it. It seems that the vital relationship of this right to core constitutional values like liberty, equality, and freedom of belief, and the critical role that it plays in the ability of women and all people with the capacity for pregnancy to participate fully and equally in society, make it extremely difficult to cast aside, rhetorical denunciations notwithstanding.

REVIEW OF IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY TECHNOLOGIES

Energy Efficiency is central to achieving the interrelated economic, social and environmental goals of sustainable development. Improving Energy Efficiency is about using technology that requires less energy to perform the same function plus the share of renewables in final energy consumption. and it goes beyond energy conservation behavior which results in the use of less energy This paper focuses on the deployments of improving Energy efficiency as important infrastructure for smart environment. Home energy management systems employ automated technologies to manage and reduce residential energy use and cost, as well as make energy reductions through energy efficiency measures more visible to the customer, and extend energy management systems to Internet of things applications. We first review energy management systems and Internet of things technologies. Then, we investigate the role of Cost Benefit Analysis in supporting decision-making processes in the context of projects related to home automation application.

The Role of Cost-benefit Analysis and Economic Impact Analysis in Environmental Assessment: The Case for Reform

ABSTRACT Cost-benefit analysis and economic impact analysis both provide the ability to assess projects’ economic impacts, but through different methodological approaches and perspectives. In Canada and elsewhere, cost-benefit analysis is often eschewed in favour of economic impact analysis in environmental assessment processes. This paper presents a criteria-based evaluation of the two methods and shows that cost-benefit analysis has numerous strengths relative to economic impact analysis but that both methods are useful. Consequently, we recommend that the environmental assessment process be reformed to include cost-benefit analysis complemented by economic impact analysis to provide decision-makers with more complete information.

Workshop 6 report: Wider impacts of public transport and successful implementation of desirable and beneficial projects

This paper synthesizes evidence from Workshop 6 ‘Wider impacts of public transport and successful implementation of desirable and beneficial projects’ of the 15th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport. The purpose of the workshop was to consider recent advances in identifying, understanding, and measuring the wider impacts of public transport, defined as those not typically included in assessments of direct user and system costs and benefits. While not all impacts are as yet well understood, progress is being made both conceptually and methodologically. A promising methodological convergence is apparent between disciplines dealing with different aspects of the social value of transport – for instance psychology and geography – and between different possibly overlapping definitions of wider impacts – such as accessibility, option value, and agglomeration benefits. The workshop also delved more deeply into the role of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) and wider impact assessment in decision making. Case studies show that CBA does not inform decisions around project implementation as deeply as it might, and that assessments of wider benefits may open up space for manipulation of outcomes by vested interests. The workshop concluded that more work is needed on appraisal frameworks that are sufficiently transparent and rigorous to avoid abuse, and called for more case studies on the interaction between impact assessment and the political economy of institutions and decision makers.

Positioning Nuclear Power in the Low-Carbon Electricity Transition

Addressing climate change requires de-carbonizing future energy supplies in an increasingly energy-dependent world. The IEA and the IPCC (2014) mention the following as low-carbon energy supply options: ‘renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage’. Positioning nuclear power in the decarbonization transition is a problematic issue and is overridden by ill-conceived axioms. Before probing these axioms, we provide an overview of five major, postwar energy-related legacies and some insight into who is engaged in nuclear activities. We check whether low-carbon nuclear power passes the full sustainability test and whether it is compatible with the unfettered deployment of variable renewable power sourced from the sun and from wind and water currents, which delivers two negative answers. We show that the best approach of the sustainable energy transition was Germany’s 2011 decision to phase out nuclear power for a fast development and full deployment of renewable power. This is the best approach for the sustainable energy transition. We offer five practical suggestions to strengthen and accelerate carbon- and nuclear-free transitions. They are related to institutional issues like the role of cost-benefit analysis and the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to the costs of nuclear risks and catastrophes, and to the historical record of nuclear technology and business.

The 'Cost of Crime' and Benefit-Cost Analysis of Criminal Justice Policy: Understanding and Improving Upon the State-of-The-Art

The use of benefit-cost analyses by criminal justice researchers has slowly been increasing over the past 30 years. While still in its infancy, benefit-cost analyses of criminal justice policies have recently moved from the academic arena to actual use by policy makers. The growing use of benefit-cost analysis in crime policy tends to be lauded by economists; however, criminologists and legal scholars are less than unanimous in their views. A recent issue of Criminology and Public Policy on the “Role of the Cost-of-Crime Literature,” highlights this controversy. Two main themes can be distilled from critiques of the literature: first, the considerable uncertainty that exists in cost and benefit estimates; and second, the fact that important social costs are not being taken into account in current models. A related critique is that current methodologies to estimate the cost of crime are affected by income; bringing with it a concern that criminal justice policies based on a benefit-cost analysis will favor the rich. This research note addresses these broad questions about the role of benefit-cost analysis in the criminal justice policy arena and attempts to clear up some misunderstandings on the methodologies used to estimate the cost of crime. I also highlight some of the most important gaps in the literature for those interested in helping to improve the state-of-the-art in estimating the “cost of crime.” Perhaps equally important, I hope to demystify benefit-cost analysis and unmask it for what it really is – an important tool that can help policy makers systematically and transparently assess and compare options with the goal of making better policy decisions.

Benefit-Cost Analysis of Prevention and Intervention Programs for Youth and Young Adults: Introduction to the Special Issue

Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and related economic evaluation methods (cost analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis) have increasingly been applied to prevention and intervention programs for youth and young adults to assess their costs as well as the gains that may be anticipated from investing in these programs. This work reflects in part the growing prominence of evidence-based programs, policies, and practices as well as evidence-informed decision making. The papers included in this special issue represent a range of topics and issues, including the need for accurate and comprehensive assessment of program costs, high-quality BCAs of prevention and intervention programs, increasing recognition of the importance of monetizing noncognitive outcomes, and the role of BCA in pay for success financing arrangements. This introduction (a) describes the evidence-based context in which this work plays a role, (b) summarizes the practical and theoretical contributions of the papers, and (c) identifies the common themes.

Challenges in Including BCA in Planning Approval Processes: Coal Mine Projects in New South Wales, Australia

A requirement for project proponents to include a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) as a component of their environmental impact assessments is implied in planning approval legislation in New South Wales, Australia. Fulfilling that requirement in the context of three large-scale expansions of coal mines has led to the application of choice modeling to estimate values for the main environmental, social, and heritage impacts. A number of particular issues have emerged in those applications: the framing of choice sets so that incentive-compatible willingness-to-pay questions are asked; the inclusion of “existence values” associated with employment opportunities provided by mines; and the incorporation of environmental offsets as part of the choice task given to respondents. The benefit-cost analyses of the coal mining projects have proven controversial. While the government agency responsible for administering the project approval process has used them as an input to decision-making, in some cases its recommendations have been “over-ridden” by the imposition of subjectively determined administrative rules. In one case, an appeal through legal channels against an approval was successful in part because the judge who heard the appeal dismissed the BCA findings because it was contrary to his own viewpoint of the merits of the case. In response, the state government has introduced legislation that requires greater “weight” to be given to the development benefits of coal mining. These responses have left the role of BCA and nonmarket valuation in the decision-making process in “limbo,” with practitioners and policy makers unsure as to the future of the methods in politically charged contexts.

Role of BCA in TIGER grant reviews: common errors and influence on the selection process.

Abstract As directed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) created the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grant program for surface transportation infrastructure projects. Through 2013, there have been five rounds of the grant program. TIGER uses a multi-step competitive application process to award surface transportation funds. TIGER applications are initially screened by US DOT's staff of technical experts. For projects forwarded by the review team, US DOT economic experts then review the applicant's benefit-cost analysis (BCA) and attempt to determine the likelihood that the benefits exceeded costs (i.e. not the applicant's self-determination). The final awardees are then selected by a Review Team of Modal Administrators and DOT Office of the Secretary level officials. The purpose of this paper is to discuss many of the common errors in preparing, and issues in reviewing the applicant's BCA and in making a net benefit determination. A secondary purpose is to determine if the most deserving projects, based on an applicant's BCA and the likelihood that benefits exceeded costs, are more likely to receive grant funding. We do so for the second through the fifth rounds of the program.

The Economics of Infrastructure Investment: Beyond Simple Cost Benefit Analysis

This non-technical ‘think-piece’ examines aspects of infrastructure project evaluation, concentrating on circumstances that may render a standard cost benefit analysis (CBA) inappropriate. It is designed to make infrastructure investors and planners think deeply about their assumptions and to broaden the range of issues that are taken into account. Issues considered include: the role of CBA; network effects (increasing returns to scale) and the endogeneity of resources within an economy; the valuation of productive versus consumptive benefits; the value of traded versus non-traded sector production; the role and choice of the discount rate; and the importance of considering option values when making infrastructure investment and disinvestment decisions.

Ecologic: Nanotechnology, Environmental Assurance Bonding, and Symmetric Humility

ABSTRACT To date, the turn toward market-based regulatory tools in the environmental, health, and safety context has tended to focus on taxes, tradable permits, and information disclosure rules, With comparatively little attention devoted to environmental assurance bonds. This paper argues that environmental assurance bonding offers particularly attractive regulatory approach for contexts--such as the present state of nanoscale science and engineering--in which both the risk and the benefit sides of the regulatory equation are characterized by great uncertainty. Historical examples and existing scholarly analyses of environmental assurance bonding are reviewed, and the resulting lessons are situated within the larger debate over economic cost-benefit balancing and precautionary approaches to environmental law and policy. In particular, the paper argues that environmental assurance bonding displays the virtue of symmetric humility, paying due heed to the dynamism and complexity both of sociolegal systems such as markets and of biophysical systems such as aquatic ecosystems. ********** I. INTRODUCTION II. UNCERTAINTY AND COMPLEXITY IN THE ENVIRONMENT A. Sociolegal Systems B. Biophysical Systems III. UNCERTAINTY AND COMPLEXITY IN THE MIND A. Rationality in Social Choice B. Rationality in Individual Choice IV. THE PROMISE OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSURANCE BONDING A. Environmental Assurance Bonding B. Symmetric Humility V. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION Human history becomes more and more race between education and catastrophe. H.G. Wells, Outline of History (1920) On January 30, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama issued memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies expressing an intention to study and revise the manner in which the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) conducts regulatory impact review, including economic cost-benefit analysis of proposed rules. He wrote: The fundamental principles and structures governing contemporary regulatory review were set out in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993. A great deal has been since that time. Far more is now known about regulation--not only about when it is justified, but also about what works and what does not. Far more is also known about the uses of variety of regulatory tools such as warnings, disclosure requirements, public education, and economic incentives. Years of experience have also provided lessons about how to improve the process of regulatory review. In this time of fundamental transformation, that process--and the principles governing regulation in general--should be revisited. I therefore direct the Director of OMB, in consultation with representatives of regulatory agencies, as appropriate, to produce within 100 days set of recommendations for new Executive Order on Federal regulatory review. Among other things, the recommendations should offer suggestions for the relationship between OIRA and the agencies; provide guidance on disclosure and transparency; encourage public participation in agency regulatory processes; offer suggestions on the role of cost-benefit analysis; address the role of distributional considerations, fairness, and concern for the interests of future generations; identify methods of ensuring that regulatory review does not produce undue delay; clarify the role of the behavioral sciences in formulating regulatory policy; and identify the best tools for achieving public goals through the regulatory process. Under pressure from nongovernmental organizations such as the Center for Progressive Reform, (1) the Executive Order review process was opened up for broader public comment. The resulting input suggested that, despite the President's suggestion that a great deal has been learned about the design and impact of regulations, civil society remains deeply split regarding the desirability of regulatory cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as tool for evaluating proposed policies. …

Rethinking the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis

In their excellent new book, Retaking Rationality, Richard Revesz and Michael Livermore make a strong case for reforming cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Too often, as they convincingly document, CBA has been identified with an anti-regulatory agenda rather than reflecting sound economic analysis - and I would add, too often CBA has served as a means of hindering the implementation of statutory mandates. Their specific proposals for reforming CBA seem sensible. So does their desire to reform the role of OMB in overseeing regulatory policy.The trouble is that these reforms do not go far enough. The antiregulatory bias of OMB certainly has handicapped environmental policy, but more fundamental changes are needed if we are to achieve real progress. Toxics policy needs to be rethought from the ground up along the lines of the EU REACH Directive, while climate policy needs to be guided by a precautionary attitude toward mitigation and a search for robust adaptation strategies. As an institutional home for overseeing these efforts, we should consider revamping OMB into an Office of Management, Budget and Sustainability.

Public Sector Support for Sport Tourism Events: The Role of Cost-benefit Analysis

Economic analysis is important in assessing the impacts and net benefits of sport tourism. The economic impacts of sporting events include the contribution to employment and income, both nationally and regionally. Sport tourism is also regarded as associated with a range of other benefits (and costs) of a more ‘intangible’ nature that impact on local communities as well as on entire regions. This study provides an overview of the framework of event impact assessment, distinguishing between a ‘narrower’ and ‘wider’ set of economic impacts and also ‘intangible’ impacts. It then explores the role of cost benefit analysis in the public support of special events.

Fighting Terror and Defending Freedom: The Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis

Fighting Terror and Defending Freedom: The Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis

Exposure to Toxicants and Child Health: Comments and Questions

Children are not little adults. They interact with their environments differently than adults and are uniquely affected by those interactions. This brief comment focuses on children's exposure to chemical toxicants, tracks current policy changes, and raises questions for consideration, including: How can different sectors, such as urban and rural planners, sanitation experts, engineers, architects, and transportation experts be drawn into the conversation on children's environmental health? What is the role of the precautionary principle in policies to protect children's environmental health? What is the role of cost-benefit analysis? How can research results be communicated to those whose decisions affect the lives of our children?

Unequal Partners: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Executive Review of Regulations

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has oversight responsibilities for implementation of two of the most controversial and significant developments in administrative rulemaking over the past 30 years. OIRA both acts as the eyes and ears of the President for purposes of overseeing the regulatory process and serves as the guardian of economic analysis in the rulemaking process. While the role of cost-benefit analysis in determining regulatory outcomes remains controversial, support for presidential oversight over rulemaking has grown considerably. This paper looks at the interaction between executive oversight and cost-benefit analysis in the rulemaking process. I argue that OIRA's mission in implementing executive oversight is often not compatible with its mission as an advocate for economic analysis. When such instances of incompatibility occur, the political preferences of the president dominate over analytical concerns. If executive oversight has overshadowed economic analysis, it would explain why requirements for economic analysis have not led to more cost effective regulations. Advocates of a greater role for economic analysis in regulatory decisionmaking need to examine whether alternative institutional designs for implementing such analysis would better serve their aims.

Economists and the 2002 Farm Bill: What Is the Value-Added of Policy Analysis?

The 2002 Farm Act is used as a case study of three problematic considerations related to economists' role in policy issues: priority on economic efficiency versus income distribution, the role of benefit-cost analysis, and appropriate policies given market power of agribusiness. The results of the 2002 Act relevant to each of these issues have been widely criticized, raising questions about the effectiveness of economists' involvement. However, given the uncertainties about many key program effects, criticisms of the Act are themselves in question. In this context, the role of economists is seen analytically as generating information for Bayesian decision makers, and practically as gaining attention for that information in the political process.

Selecting rail grade crossing investments with a decision support system

Abstract The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has developed a series of rail and rail-related analysis tools that assist FRA officials, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), state Department of Transportation (DOT), and other constituents in evaluating the cost and benefits of potential infrastructure projects. To meet agency objectives, the FRA wants to add a high-speed rail grade crossing analysis tool to its package of rail and rail-related intermodal software products. This paper presents a conceptual decision support system (DSS) that can assist officials in achieving this goal. The paper first introduces the FRA's objectives and the role of cost benefit analysis in achieving these objectives. Next, there is a discussion of the models needed to assess the feasibility of proposed high-speed rail grade crossing investments and the presentation of a decision support system (DSS) that can deliver these models transparently to users. Then, the paper illustrates a system session and examines the potential benefits from system use.

1 Exploiting Web‐Based Technology to Foster IPDT Productivity

AbstractVery few organizations are able to show a “bottom line” impact directly attributable to investments in information technology. While many reasons are postulated for this failure to produce measurable improvements, a large part of the solution appears to be getting the user involved in defining requirements, identifying cost benefits, and implementing reengineered product development processes.This approach was tried and validated for the Integrated Product Development Team (IPDT) on which it was applied. The product was a ground based weapon system. Results of the experiment exceeded expectations. Utilization of the system engineering process was an essential element in making this a successful endeavor.Described herein is the process by which IPDT perspectives were changed, the role of cost benefit analysis, results obtained, and what was learned about transforming a well‐established culture.