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"This book presents research on a kind of water use conflicts that is becoming more and more common and important: How to best manage moving water in times of increasing demand for electricity as well as environmental services. How should decisions be made between water use for electricity generation or for environmental and recreational benefits? The authors develop a simple general equilibrium model of a small open economy which is used to derive a cost-benefit rule that can be used to assess projects that divert water from electricity generation to recreational and other uses (or vice versa). The cost-benefit rule is then applied to the specific case of a proposed change at a Swedish hydropower plant. The book provides a manual for the evaluation of river regulations which can easily be replicated in other studies."--Publisher's website

Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Introduction -- Scope of the study -- Important contributions -- Plan of the study -- 2 Some basic tools and concepts -- Utility maximization -- A health production function -- Intertemporal models -- Introducing risk -- Some further comments on risk -- More complex intertemporal models -- Appendix -- 3 Evaluating health changes in a certain world -- Two money measures of a change in health -- On the properties of compensated money measures -- An example: using CV and EV -- Overall versus instantaneous money measures -- A health production function approach -- Using market data to evaluate changes in health -- Appendix -- 4 Money measures in a risky world -- Introducing money measures in a risky world -- A WTP locus -- Evaluating changes in mortality, and the value of a statistical life -- Endogenous risks and altruism -- Changes in wealth and the value of health -- Intertemporal models -- Appendix -- 5 Evaluating health risks: practical methodologies -- The contingent valuation method -- Closed-ended techniques -- A useful interpretation of WTP measures -- CVM studies of health risks -- The human capital approach -- Market-based estimation methods -- The value of a statistical life -- Appendix -- 6 Contingent valuation studies of health care -- Empirical studies of the WTP for health care: a brief review -- A study of high blood pressure -- The results -- Useful formulae for the computation of the mean WTP -- Appendix -- 7 Aggregation -- The social welfare function -- Project evaluations -- Pragmatic views on the aggregation problem -- An illustration: how to assess a treatment -- Altruism -- Altruism in cost-benefit analysis -- Appendix -- 8 Further evaluation issues in a risky world -- The value of information -- A health production function model

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Introduction -- Welfare economics -- The market economy, market failures, and government failures -- Outline and summary of the rest of this book -- Utility versus welfare -- The Pareto principle -- Pareto optimality and the market economy -- Compensation criteria -- Social welfare functions -- Consumer and producer surplus measures -- Market failures -- Social choice -- Applied welfare economics -- 2 Pareto optimality in a market economy -- 2.1 The Pareto criterion -- 2.2 General equilibrium in a market economy -- 2.3 The Pareto criterion in a market economy -- 2.4 A concluding remark -- 3 The compensation principle and the social welfare function -- 3.1 The compensation principle -- 3.2 The social welfare function -- 3.3 Measurability and comparability -- 3.4 The optimal distribution of welfare and income -- 3.5 Concluding remarks -- 4 Measuring welfare changes -- 4.1 Consumer surplus -- 4.2 Multiple price changes -- 4.3 Aggregation of consumer surplus -- 4.4 Compensating and equivalent variations -- 4.5 Some further results -- 4.6 Welfare measures for firms -- 4.7 Concluding remarks -- 5 Market failures - causes and welfare consequences -- 5.1 Decreasing average costs -- 5.2 Monopoly -- 5.3 Public goods -- 5.4 External effects -- 5.5 Market imbalances -- 5.6 Other sources of market failures -- 5.7 Market failures as a prisoner's dilemma -- 5.8 Concluding remarks -- 6 Public choice -- 6.1 Efficient provision of public goods -- 6.2 The typical taxpayer -- 6.3 Lindahl equilibrium -- 6.4 The median voter equilibrium -- 6.5 What do voters and bureaucrats maximize? -- 7 A 'Smorgasbord' of further topics -- 7.1 Property rights, policy instruments, and the depletion of stratospheric ozone -- 7.2 Coase's theorem -- 7.3 Local public goods -- 7.4 Pareto-efficient and optimal taxation

A major problem in health economics is how to give a value to changes in health. This is the first book to examine all the money measures that are used in such evaluations. Changes in health might be caused by medical treatments, by public safety programmes and by anti-pollution programmes, and the cost-benefit analysis of such programmes involves the use of money measures. The author defines the properties of these money measures, examining them in both a certain and a risky world. He evaluates available empirical approaches for the assessment of the value of health changes, and considers measures such as quality-adjusted life years (qalys) and healthy-years equivalents (hyes). This book raises the important question of whether we are willing to pay the costs for our health care system. It will be of interest to advanced students of health economics and related disciplines, and will also be useful for professionals working on projects that affect human health

This book is an advanced text in applied welfare economics and its application to environmental economics. The author goes far beyond the existing literature on the valuation of environmental benefits, deriving sets of cost-benefit rules which can be used to assess private and public sector projects which affect the environment. He explains how valuation studies can be augmented so as to yield the information necessary for decision-making, showing how externalities, taxes, unemployment, risk, irreversibilities, flow and stock pollutants, discounting, and intergenerational distribution should be treated in social cost-benefit analysis. Drawing on a number of empirical illustrations, this book will be of interest not only to those taking advanced courses in environmental economics, welfare economics, and public economics, but also as a reference for those undertaking project evaluations in government and business

This is the first book in welfare economics to be primarily intended for undergraduates and non-specialists. Concepts such as Pareto optimality in a market economy, the compensation criterion, and the social welfare function are explored in detail. Market failures are analysed by using different ways of measuring welfare changes. The book also examines public choice, and the issues of provision of public goods, median voter equilibrium, government failures, efficient and optimal taxation, and intergenerational equity. The three final chapters are devoted to applied welfare economics: methods for revealing people's preferences, cost-benefit analysis, and project evaluation in a risky world. The book is intended for introductory and intermediate courses in welfare economics, microeconomics, and public economics. It will also be suitable for courses in health economics, environmental economics, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as those undertaking project evaluations in government agencies and private firms

This book is an advanced text in welfare economics and its application to environmental economics. It provides, in the first chapters, a comprehensive survey of developments in the theory of measurement of welfare, and then applies this theory to environmental economics. The first part derives consumer surplus measures to be held in a timeless world. Throughout the emphasis is on the circumstances in which a money measure correctly reflects the underlying utility change. Four main cases are considered: unrationed private goods, rationed private goods, public goods or externalities, and discrete choices. Reviews of practical methodologies for the calculation of consumers' surplus for these classes of goods are also given. The second part looks at intertemporal issues. In particular, it derives comsumer faces risk and uncertainty. The book is intended for advanced courses in environmental and welfare economics, and as a reference work for those interested in the theory of measurement of welfare and its application to environmental economics