Robert Sugden

Cost effectiveness. Economics. This is an introduction, accessible to non-economists as well as to economists, to the practice of cost benifit analysis. It begins from a discussion of financial appraisal. The distinguishing features of cost benifit analysis are then introduced progressively. Practical examples are used whenever possible to aid the exposition. Economic theory is introduced only where it is immediately relevant to practice. Nonetheless the approach is firmly grounded in economic principles and considerable space is devoted to those ideas that are central to practical cost benefit analysis - shadow prices, consumers' surplus, and valuation of unmarked goods. The additional needs of economically trained readers are catered for by a number of appendices which relate the ideas expounded in the book to mainstream economic theory.

"In The Economics of Rights, Cooperation and Welfare, Robert Sugden sets out to answer a question that lies at the heart of economics and politics: how can individuals coordinate their behaviour in the absence of central law-enforcing agencies? Using the tools of evolutionary game theory, Sugden shows how self-enforcing conventions of property and reciprocity can evolve spontaneously out of the interactions of self-interested individuals. He goes on to argue that such conventions tend to become norms, even if they arbitrarily favour some people relative to others, and even if they do not maximize social welfare."--BOOK JACKET.