The value of a statistical life (VSL) establishes the money-risk tradeoff that U.S. government agencies have used for four decades to monetize the mortality reduction benefits of proposed regulations. This article advocates the adoption of the VSL more generally both for policy evaluation purposes and for setting the magnitude of regulatory sanctions involving fatalities. Agencies currently employ the inconsistent practice of using the VSL to set the stringency of regulations, while at the same time, reverting to very low monetary values of sanctions for violations that result in fatalities. Reform of penalty levels to reflect the VSL will require increasing the current statutory limits on regulatory penalties. Revamping the penalty structure also will incentivize private companies to incorporate the VSL in their corporate risk analyses. Government agencies, including those concerned with national defense, similarly could profit from greater expansion of the use of the VSL in policy decisions.

Total cost estimates for crime in the USA are both out-of-date and incomplete. We estimated incidence and costs of personal crimes (both violent and non-violent) and property crimes in 2017. Incidence came from national arrest data, multi-state estimates of police-reported crimes per arrest, national victimization and road crash surveys, and police underreporting studies. We updated and expanded upon published unit costs. Estimated crime costs totaled $2.6 trillion ($620 billion in monetary costs plus quality of life losses valued at $1.95 trillion; 95 % uncertainty interval $2.2–$3.0 trillion). Violent crime accounted for 85 % of costs. Principal contributors to the 10.9 million quality-adjusted life years lost were sexual violence, physical assault/robbery, and child maltreatment. Monetary expenditures caused by criminal victimization represent 3 % of Gross Domestic Product – equivalent to the amount spent on national defense. These estimates exclude the additional costs of preventing and avoiding crime such as enhanced lighting and burglar alarms. They also exclude crimes against businesses and most white-collar and corporate offenses.

The idea of assessing the costs and benefits of public and private projects is not new to Europe, dating back to studies at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees (Paris) in the XIX century. Later on, in the last century, Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) in its current form has been more extensively used in the United States than in Europe. In the last two decades, however, there has been a rapid increase in its use in a number of European countries and at the European Union (EU) level. European governments often undertake tasks that would be done by private companies in the United States, such as the provision of transport, energy, water and waste management, health services, etc. In the United States the focus of BCA has often been regulatory impact analysis, rather than public project evaluation. One might, therefore, expect that Europeans might approach some things differently from their American counterparts and that new insights might result from these efforts. The articles in this symposium, taken from the recent European Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (SBCA) conference in Toulouse, illustrate some of these differences and some converging themes.

Benefit–cost analysis (BCA) is often viewed as measuring the efficiency of a policy independent of the distribution of its consequences. The role of distributional effects on policy choice is disputed; either: (a) the policy that maximizes net benefits should be selected and distributional concerns should be addressed through other measures, such as tax and transfer programs or (b) BCA should be supplemented with distributional analysis and decision-makers should weigh efficiency and distribution in policy choice. The separation of efficiency and distribution is misleading. The measure of efficiency depends on the numéraire chosen for the analysis, whether monetary values or some other good (unless individuals have the same rates of substitution between them). The choice of numéraire is not neutral; it can affect the ranking of policies by calculated net benefits. Alternative evaluation methods, such as BCA using a different numéraire, weighted BCA, or a social welfare function (SWF), may better integrate concerns about distribution and efficiency. The most appropriate numéraire, distributional weights, or SWFs cannot be measured or statistically estimated; it is a normative choice.

The problem of how to evaluate investments in airports has now been studied for over 50 years. This paper analyzes the use of different methods like cost–benefit analysis (CBA), economic impact analysis (EIA), and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to address the question. It assesses the strength and weaknesses of each method, and it discusses which methods have been used in different countries. The paper argues that the CBA approach and the newer CGE modeling approach address the policy issue well and that both methods are appropriate, although improvements are possible, especially in the newer aspects of evaluation. Furthermore, more data intensive CGE models are able to analyze broader aspects of the evaluation question for which CBA has had difficulty. EIA does not address the problem satisfactorily, and it misleads air transport policy. But this evaluation contrasts sharply with practice. EIA has been extensively used to decide on airport investment. CGE approaches are very promising, though further work is needed for them to reach their full potential. This paper pays particular attention to the relationship between CBA and CGE in airport investment evaluation and also the possible role of wider economic benefits (WEBs) of aviation in evaluation.

Mineral deposits of base metals, precious metals, and rare earth elements have been discovered on deep seabeds, and the commercial exploitation of these resources seems poised to begin after faltering for many years. The development of seabed resources could be socially beneficial if all goes well, but the industry faces daunting challenges and uncertainties. Emerging regulations and contracting mechanisms are the principal means for managing these uncertainties. This article recommends a complementary approach: the use of ex ante benefit–cost analysis of proposed seabed mining contracts that incorporates a fundamental uncertainty evaluation. We argue that such an ex ante evaluation will improve the state of information for the decision-making, reducing the risk of regulatory noncompliance or costly contract disputes after seabed mining begins.

Socioeconomic evaluation of a public investment helps to understand its value for the community, and it also improves an investment by analyzing its different components, and the risks inherent in its completion. The Act of 31 December 2012 about Public Finance Planning makes it mandatory in France for project sponsors to conduct an ex-ante socioeconomic evaluation of all public civil investments made by the State and its public institutions. An independent counter-expert assessment of the ex-ante socioeconomic evaluation is conducted for the largest projects. A permanent committee of experts has been established to specify the methodological rules for socioeconomic evaluation and define the studies and research necessary.

In 2008 European Commission launches the open access infrastructure for research in Europe project (OpenAIRE), supporting open access (OA) in scientific information and research output. In this paper, we assess the economic sustainability of the OpenAIRE project. The empirical strategy is developed through a Cost–Benefit Analysis framework to evaluate and compare the costs and benefits of OpenAIRE services to provide recommendations on the project’s economic efficiency and sustainability, a non-market valuation method based on the results of a “Choice Experiment” to calculate the Total Economic Value generated by OpenAIRE and a full preference ranking approach. Findings indicate that stakeholders prefer interoperability between research platforms and output, better access to scientific results and compliance to OA mandates. Furthermore, net social benefits for the basic services for 15 years are at least five times higher than costs’ present value while the potential R&D effect from research suggests even larger benefits in the long run. Subscriptions based on the estimated willingness to pay and cost, institutional subsidies and public awareness are the main recommendations for the sustainable operation of OpenAIRE. This study contributes to the literature on monetary valuation of the benefits and costs of OA to scientific knowledge.