Course Description

Many project and policy decisions involve balancing costs and benefits. CBA provides a structured framework for comparing costs to benefits and analyzing which are greater overall. This 3-hour session will provide participants with a broad understanding about the economic theory that underlies CBA, and it’s history.  It also provides examples to help develop an appreciation of that framework and the challenges to avoid, as well as a template outlining the steps necessary to execute an effective CBA process.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the definition, history, and usage of CBA

• Explore the basic principles of CBA

• Appreciate how costs and benefits (that occur over time) should be handled, including discussion of discount rate

• Review examples of tangible and intangible costs and benefits

• Recognize and appropriately incorporate costs and benefits that are not easy to quantify

• Review and understand a 4-step process framework for conducting a CBA project

• Identify the most common CBA techniques