More public
policies are coming under scrutiny for many reasons. Law makers are responding to pressure from
constituents, taxpayers and public interest watch groups seek more accountability, lobbyists want more
influence over expenditures, and government agencies increasingly need to
justify their programs. The Federal
government agencies—Government Accounting Office (GAO), Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—all require some form of
program and project accounting and the OMB circular A-94 represents the
“official” guidelines for Benefit-Cost Analysis of federal government programs.
This course
will cover the following topics related to policy analysis and project
evaluation.
+ the
analytical tools of welfare economics
+ placing
benefit cost analysis in the wider context of project evaluation
+ undertaking
benefit cost analysis
+ dealing
with risk and uncertainty
+
distributional aspects of government projects
Your
performance in this course is evaluated by 3 measures: a midterm exam, a final exam and a term
project reported in writing. The project
is worth 50% of your grade, and the exams are weighted by 30% for the highest
score and 20% for the lowest score.
There is no
text book for this course. I will select
papers and articles for you to read and discuss in class. I hope most papers will be available online
so that you can obtain them easily. You
can start with the OMB A-94
publication. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a094/a094.html)
Possible
research topics include (but are not limited to):
1. What is
the correct social discount rate for natural resources?
2. A
Cost-Benefit analysis of the New
Mexico lottery funded Success Scholarship program.
3. Argue:
Regulations are the most insidious form of taking.
Alternatively: Zoning and building codes
reduce economic efficiency.
4. How does
mitigation against natural disasters affect resiliency?
5. Can we
effectively mitigate against the next terrorist attack?
6. General:
How can we incorporate BCA into the health care sector?
More specifically: How do we measure the
benefits generated by (insert any public health program here)?
7. To what
extent are BCA methods used by the private sector?
