The Benefit-Cost Ratio in Resource Development Planning

George A. Pavelis

Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, 1971, vol. 3, issue 1, 161-166

Abstract: The stimulus for this article was an observation that resource development in the United States is of a lumpy or whole project-by-project character. We seem to have looked at resource development proposals in isolation from other worthwhile activities and to have been preoccupied with the magnitude of “benefit-cost ratios” in evaluating and comparing individual resource development activities, projects, or programs. Unless properly interpreted, however, such ratios can mislead planners and legislators to invest capital and other inputs in a way that leads to a less than fully efficient pattern of resource development, even where the objective is only to maximize quantifiable monetary benefits. Accordingly, this analysis examines the “benefit-cost ratio” in the context of an income-producing efficiency objective and elementary production theory. Such other currently emphasized objectives as environmental quality improvement are treated implicitly, though not within a multiobjective framework. For a more complete treatment of these see Miller and Holloway [9] who have illustrated an application of multiobjective resource planning principles recently issued by the Water Resources Council [15]. Other particular papers and reports dealing with multiobjective resource development planning are [3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13 and 14].

Date: 1971
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jagaec:v:3:y:1971:i:01:p:161-166_01

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().