Benefit-Cost Analysis for Policy
Benefit-cost analysis (BCA), also called cost-benefit analysis, is a systematic appraisal that values all the material consequences of a policy in money, discounts them to present value, and recommends the option with the greatest net social benefit. Grounded in welfare economics and the compensation principle, it asks whether the gains to those who benefit exceed the losses to those who bear the costs across society as a whole. Set out comprehensively in Boardman, Greenberg, Vining and Weimer's standard textbook and operationalised by government guidance such as the UK Treasury's Green Book, BCA is the principal efficiency test applied to public investments and regulations.
Source record
Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.
- Boardman, A. E., Greenberg, D. H., Vining, A. R., & Weimer, D. L. (2018). Cost-Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice (5th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. · ISBN 9781108415996
- HM Treasury (2022). The Green Book: Central Government Guidance on Appraisal and Evaluation. London: HM Treasury. · URL
Curated claims
Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.
This view does not invent a claim assessment when the ledger has none.
Related methods
Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.