Social Cost-Benefit Analysis for Development

Social cost-benefit analysis (social CBA) is the economic appraisal of development projects from the standpoint of society as a whole rather than the private investor. It values every input and output at its shadow (economic) price — the true opportunity cost or social worth, which in distorted developing-country markets diverges from observed market prices — then discounts the resulting net benefit stream at a social discount rate to compute an economic net present value (ENPV) and economic internal rate of return (EIRR). The method was systematised for developing countries by Ian Little and James Mirrlees and by the parallel UNIDO guidelines.