We back out an estimate of a personal discount rate of between 3 and 4 percent for a person with a life expectancy of 74 years who dies at age 30 (or 40) and has a value of statistical life of $6.3 million. Central to these calculations is the series generated by Murphy and Topel of value of...

We find that a discount rate of 3.8% allows us to derive the schedule of "value of life years" in Murphy and Topel [2006] from their schedule of "value of remaining years of life", this latter presumably being based on a "value of statistical life" of $6.3 million. We draw on the Makeham...

This chapter discusses the alternative investment criteria commonly used in the appraisal of investment projects. The net present value (NPV) of a project criterion is widely accepted by accountants, financial analysts, and economists as the one that yields the correct project choices in all...

An investment project usually lasts for many years, hence its appraisal requires a comparison of the costs and benefits over its entire life. For acceptance, the present value of the project's expected benefits should exceed the present value of its expected costs. Among a set of mutually...

The purpose of this study is to develop a model to arrive at a joint optimizing strategy for capital budgeting for the construction of new school buildings and for the renovation of existing schools. This model provides a practical tool for ranking construction projects so as to yield the...

The ultimate outcome of a public or a private investment is determined by the financial, economic, managerial and political parameters associated with the project. A financial or economic net present value (NPV) calculated on a few sets of input variables tells one very little about the...

This project is an expansion of the existing water supply system in San Jose Del Monte and is being proposed for funding by the Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA), a government-owned quasi-corporate entity that provides institutional and financial support to the municipal water...

Fragmentation and severe inequalities in health status, health infrastructure and services were among the major problems the Limpopo Provincial Government had to deal with when they took office in 1994. Hence, as part of an intensive program of legislative and policy development to reform the...

This research examines households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for an improved electricity service. Households’ WTP is estimated using the contingent valuation (CV) method on data from 350 in-person interviews in North Cyprus. In order to avoid the cost of outages, households are willing to...

Nepal’s Flood Recovery Program (NFRP) is operating in Kailali, Bardiya, Banke, and Kanchenpur districts to increase farm productivity and family income, including rehabilitation and development of small-scale community infrastructures. The purpose of this modeling exercise is to estimate the...