COST BENEF IT ANALYS IS IN TOWN PLANNING

Cost benefit analysis is used to assist choice between alternative decisions. It does so by comparing the costs and benefits that will flow from the alternatives as a guide to which choice will bring the greater margin of benefits over costs or the greater net return in benefits for the resources invested. The analysis, used in the private sector under other names, is straight-forward, although technical problems abound, for the decision maker is conerned primarily with his own objectives and, therefore, a limited range of private costs and benefits which can normally be measured by market prices. In contrast, in the public sector, community objectives must be reckoned with, the range of costs and benefits is wider, and many benefits being public goods have no market price as a guide to their value. It is in the public sector that cost benefit analysis has been receiving growing attention particularly for public investment decisions, as this sector extends and public decision makers become more conscious of th