What is it about?
The European Union funds major investment projects in its regions lagging behind in the Member States, mainly in transport, environment, telecommunications, energy, research and development. A condition to obtain a grant from the EU is that social benefits and costs are analysed by the applicants. The paper explains the methodology and the expected returns to investment for the society.
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Why is it important?
International orgasanisations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank support infrastructure projects by loans. Central and local government also support such projects. This paper is unique as it draws from the experience of using cost benefit analysis over twenty years in a consistent way across countries and shows the financial and economic returns of a large number of projects in different sector. This is of interest for any organisation or economist working on project evaluation.
Perspectives
I hope this paper will convince readers that social cost benefit analysis can actually contribute to decision making by pointing to differences between economic returns to society and financial returns to investors.
Massimo Florio
Universita degli Studi di Milano
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cost-Benefit Analysis and European Union Cohesion Policy: Economic Versus Financial Returns in Investment Project Appraisal, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, January 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/bca.2018.4.
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