This paper offers a comprehensive evaluation of the welfare impact of a policy usually regarded as highly successful and vastly imitated worldwide: the privatisation policy pursued in the UK by MrsThatcher's government (1979-1990) and subsequently by Mr Major's government (1990-1997) The British...

The assessment of the technical, economic and financial quality of programmes and projects is one of the day-to-day activities at the European Investment Bank (EIB). The paper explains how this task is approached within the EIB, how some of the tools of cost-benefit analysis are employed, and...

Application of the social discount rate to public sector projects is one of the most crucial parameters in cost benefit analysis. Because of its importance some countries have a formal discount rate and method of discounting policies. The United Kingdom was one of the earliest to adopt a policy...

Pareto welfare criterion based on people’s willingness to pay for a project’s output is regarded by many as a narrow interpretation of improvement in social well-being. A broader opinion is that even though poorer individuals may be less able to pay for a particular benefit, they may obtain...

Europe needs a huge investment effort for (broadly defined) infrastructure in the next decade. A combination of EU grants, loans by the EIB and the EBRD, and their leverage effect on private capital is going to mobilise a huge amount of savings. Planners should establish priorities and criteria....

In the context of scarce EU budgetary resources and strained public finances, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) plays a crucial role in assisting policymakers’ public investment decisions. The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons from the CBA experience under the Structural and Cohesion Funds to...