Because of the time value of money (that is, a dollar today can be invested to yield more than a dollar tomorrow), a project's costs and benefits in different periods are not comparable. Therefore, a discount rate that will convert future sums into present values is used in cost-benefit...

The paper aims at a conceptual contribution to the normative economic analysis of rural de-velopment (RD) policies. RD is regarded as a problem of interaction between individuals; (lacking) structural change or the (missing) integration of externalities are therefore recon-structed as...

Lucas (2004) asserts that "Of the tendencies that are harmful to sound economics, the most seductive, and in my opinion the most poisonous, is to focus on questions of distribution... The potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current...

Mullen (2004,2005) conducted an impact assessment of two ACIAR funded economics research projects enquiring into domestic grain market reform in China. The benefit cost ratio to ACIAR was estimated to be in the range 5:1 to 33:1. The impact assessment was conducted when grain policy was viewed...

This volume was prepared by Luise Röpke while she was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes three self-contained chapters about aspects of the integration of new...

Recent modelling of the costs and benefits of climate change has renewed debate regarding assumptions for the social discount rate in analysing the impacts of environmental change. Previous literature suggests two key factors influence estimates of the social discount rate: the rate of pure time...

The paper presents a theoretical framework for the appraisal of industrial projects. The analysis begins with the commercial evaluation followed by the economic evaluation from the national point of view. Notes are also made regarding indirect effects, the impact of the project on a town and...