Cost-Benefit Analysis (5 cr)

Code:
AGERE-002
Field:
Microeconomics
Target:
Master’s students
Organiser:
University of Helsinki - Environmental Economics
Instructor:
Anna-Kaisa Kosenius
Period:
Period 4
Format:
Lecture
Method:
Online teaching
Remote:
Zoom link can be found in Moodle
Enrollment:

In case of conflicting information consider the Sisu/Course/Moodle pages the primary source of information.

Aalto and Hanken economics students can enroll in their home university’s SISU! Further instructions can be found on the How to enroll page, also for other students.

Before taking and completing the course make sure that the credits can be counted towards your degree at your home university by checking which courses are included in your curriculum or by contacting your home university’s student/learning services.

  • To access the Moodle course area, use all the features and participate in the activities (assignments, discussions), you must have successfully registered for the course in Sisu and logged in with your UH user ID.
  • For more information on how to activate your UH user ID and register for a Moodle course area, click here.

Microeconomic foundations of CBA (compensating variation, equivalent variation, Potential Pareto Improvements, Consumer surplus, Producer surplus and Government surplus), valuing changes in the primary markets and in the secondary markets, benefit transfer, valuing health effects, discounting, social discount rate, dealing with uncertainty, distributional aspects, climate change and CBA

  • to understand the microeconomic theory behind CBA
  • to learn the basic principles of benefit-transfer and
  • how to assess the value of outcomes of projects affecting market prices
  • to be able to distinguish between impacts in the primary markets and the secondary markets and understand when the impacts in the secondary markets should be included in the CBA.
  • to understand the impact of the choice of the discount rate on the net present value of a project, illustrate and critically assess the different theories regarding the choice of the discount rate, and calculate the net present value of a project.
  • to understand how uncertainty is incorporated into cost-benefit analysis in both theory and practice and perform expected value analysis and Monte-Carlo sensitivity analysis.
  • to understand how health effects and distributional issues can be incorporated into cost-benefit analysis and perform a simple distributionally weighted cost-benefit analysis.
  • to understand, illustrate and critically appraise the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of CBA and  critically assess CBA-studies and distinguish a well-conducted CBA from a poor one