Environmental decision making: an introduction to the application of cost-benefit analysis (Vol.1)

UNEP's programme of studies on the cost-benefit evaluation of en vironmental protection measures has already produced a number of publications. These include three volumes in the UNEP Studies Series:
Volume 4: The Economics of Survival
Volume 5: Analyzing the Options
Volume 6: Evaluating the Environment
A fourth volume in the same series is currently going to print. These publications report on the proceedings of the Inter Governmental Expert Group meetings which were organised by UNEP over the period 1979-1981. The Inter-Governmental Expert Group held four meetings in Nairobi, Paris and Istanbul. At the request of the Group a special Ad Hoc Experts Meeting was also held in New York in January 1980.

The reports on the proceedings of these meetings are, of necessity, of an analytical nature. They attempt to examine the basic concepts underlying the application of cost-benefit analysis to environmental concerns in general and to the specific conditions prevailing in differing economic systems. Furthermore, the Group had felt from the beginning that a rigorous theoretical basis must be laid for the role of cost-benefit analysis in environmental decision-making. Only when such a basis had been prepared, equally acceptable to economists as to environmentalists, could practical problems involved in the exercise be considered.

It has, however, always been UNEP's intention to produce, as the final result of the programme of studies, a practical and pragmatic introduction to the application of cost-benefit analysis. The present volume is an attempt to establish a framework for such an application in clear and concise language. The study is based on the insights gained during the protracted discussions of the Inter-Governmental Experts. as well as on an examination of the over 150 case studies received in UNEP from different parts of the world. A companion volume evaluates a number of selected case studies in order to demonstrate how different problems of application could be solved through innovative.. often ingenious, techniques that have been developed in different parts of the world.