A Student's Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis for Natural Resources

Lesson 1: Introduction

This website was developed to assist students in the College of Agriculture at the University of Arizona develop a better understanding of cost-benefit analysis particularly as it applies to natural resources issues. This website is an outgrowth of two courses taught by Prof. Ed de Steiguer. Those courses are: 1) RNR 485 - "Natural Resource Management and Economics," and 2) RNR 565 - "Advanced Natural Resource Management and Economics."

The topics covered in this website are as follows:

  1. Market Failure and Public Investment
  2. Cost-Benefit Analysis in Theory and Application
  3. The Mechanics of Discounting
  4. Project Selection Criteria
  5. The Social Discount Rate
  6. Theory Behind Cost and Benefit Valuation
  7. Valuing Market and Non-Market Natural Resources
  8. Natural Resource Values from Secondary Sources
  9. Conducting Sensitivity Analysis
  10. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
  11. Links to CBA Literature

References which were particularly helpful in developing information on cost-benefit analysis are as follows:

Anderson, David R., Dennis J. Sweeney and Thomas A. Williams. 1997. An Introduction to Management Science: A Quantitative Approach to Decision Making. 8th ed. West Publishing Co. Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Boardman, Greenberg, Vining and Weimer. 1996. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice. Prentice-Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Loomis, John B. 1993. Integrated Public Lands Management. Columbia University Press. New York.

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