Discussions about applied Cost Benefit Analysis are incomplete without the thorny issue of discounting emerging at some point. Indeed, since the calculation of Net Present Values (NPV), and hence the efficiency of a project or policy, hinges so crucially upon the level of the discount rate...

For at least fifty years economists have argued that vertically-aggregated marginal willingness to pay, when set equal to marginal provision cost, will result in optimal public good provision levels. This methodological approach would be expected to yield an exact analog, in terms of optimal...

This paper relates to the implications of transaction costs in Ronald Coase. The economics of transaction costs (TCE) is a first-order theoretical framework for understanding both the constraints to the development of the company to warn gaps in current public policy developments with important...

Poverty reduction is one of major goals of development policy of most countries, especially developing ones. To reduce poverty, numerous development programmes have been implemented throughout the world. In recent decades, researchers as well as policy makers have been increasingly interested in...

The informal credit market remains an important source of finance for the poor in Vietnam. Yet, little if anything is known about the ultimate impact of informal loans on poverty and inequality. If informal credit is an important means to decrease poverty, the government may want to reconsider...

A number of highly cited papers by Flyvbjerg and associates have shown that ex ante infrastructure appraisals tend to be overly optimistic. Ex post evaluations indicate a bias where investment costs are higher and benefits lower on average than predicted ex ante. These authors argue that the...

This paper attempts to assess the impact of treatment effect or programme applying difference in difference (DD) approach. This study also identifies that the DD estimators are biased under certain conditions.

Changes in the climate will have a major impact on the Dutch economy and environment. According to official Dutch climate scenario’s, at the end of the century the sea level will have increased by between 35 and 85 cm. This paper investigates major policy options for the IJsselmeer-area to...

This paper describes the methodology and indicators selected in constructing a new multi-dimensional environmental vulnerability indicator for Mongolia. Most previous studies of environmental vulnerability use national level data. This study uses 16 sub-national indicators under three...

This non-technical summary presents the findings and recommendations from the project called ‘Analysis of institutional adaptability to redress electricity infrastructure vulnerability due to climate change’. The objectives of the project are to examine the adaptive capacity of existing...