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The article presents a list recent works in non market decision making. The bibliography covers works in non-market decision making and related fields. Coverage of the period 1963 to mid-1966 is complete, or at least as complete as possible in such a rapidly growing field. Some of the books included in the list are: "Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State," by W. J. Baumol; "The Public Economy of Urban Communities" edited by J. Margolis. Some of the journals included here are: "American Political Science Review"; "American Economic Review."

Presents information on the articles that have been published in the march 1967 issue of the journal "Papers on Non-Market Decision Making."

Comments on a paper on graph-theoretic approaches to the theory of public choice, by M. Taylor, published in the Spring 1968 issue of "Public Choice." Relationship between the structure of the individual rankings and the existence of intransitivity; Quantitative difficulties not stressed by Taylor; Discussion of the problem of interpersonal comparisons in the context of the computational scheme.

This paper assesses the role program evaluation can play in assisting decisions on public programs. The author looks at evaluation from the standpoint of decisionmakers interested m finding out the "right" answers about their programs. The discussion focuses on the assistance that various types of evaluation can give to program managers and to policymakers concerned with legislative changes and budget levels. The paper includes recent examples of relevant evaluation work. The concluding section analyzes some of the problems decisionmakers face in trying to get reliable, useful evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Studies of the political behavior of the citizens of various countries, the course and outcomes of elections, and the organization and functioning of parties dominated the time and intellectual energies of political sociologists in the 1960s. Much of this work was associated with political sociologist Stein Rokkan, scholars connected with him, or those whose work was facilitated by him. This paper makes use of a collection of essays and articles of the book "Citizens, Elections, Parties," in order to raise some issues concerning dominant intellectual perspectives in the field and the implications for research priorities. Two of the major themes in this article will be considered. First, the model of nation-building and secondly, the proposed agenda for research on a problem which has barely begun to be studied. It will also include institutional and structural comparisons of the different ways in which the pressures of the mass electorate, the parties and the elective bodies are dovetailed into a broader system of decision-making among interest organizations and private and public corporate units.

Discusses voting behavior and aggregate policy targets in the U.S. Relationship of an aggregate vote unemployment-price change function to individual behavior; Information on the derivation of a vote-unemployment-price-change function; Factors that affect voting behavior.

Because highly technical expositions of significance tests are readily available, sociologists will proceed from an elementary and non-technical statement that emphasizes the meaning and interpretation of the tests. First and foremost, a test of significance is a formal procedure for making a decision between two hypotheses about some characteristic of a population parameter on the basis of knowledge obtained from a sample statistic of that population. Either the null hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis may be derived from the substantive theory in question, though it is conventional that the theory being tested that is, the researcher's hunch, or the possibility he thinks most interesting is identified with the alternative hypothesis. This means that null hypotheses are usually set up for the express purpose of seeing if there is empirical warrant for their rejection or nullification so that the alternative hypothesis can be accepted hence the term null hypothesis. Testing for significance involves a comparison of the difference between the sample statistic and the parameter specified by the null hypothesis with a theoretically determined sampling distribution. This comparison allows estimation of how often such a difference would occur if difference were due to random errors in the sample selection process sample error.

The article presents information on federal budgeting process. Otto Davis, M.A.H. Dempster, and Aaron Wildavsky (DDW) have recently argued that federal budgeting for non-defense expenditures can be represented as a set of temporally stable linear decision rules and present empirical results in support of this position. Restricting the search to rational models is deliberate. Behavior that displays such properties will tend to have survival value, while that which does not will tend to be displaced. DDW find in incrementalism the fundamental explanation for the budgeting behavior.

The article presents information on a method or algorithm for finding proposals on which all members of a group can agree. The method is confined to situations where the variables can be changed by any "small" amount and, where the group is attempting to decide on a change in the variables from some "existing situation." A possible change in the variables will be called a "proposal." A proposal would be "acceptable" to an individual if it would increase his utility. The problem is not to pick a particular proposal which is acceptable to all individuals.

Decision models which aspire lo generality are weak since they must be divorced from any societal environment, or assume universality for one form of society. The former is the case with normative rational models, the latter with descriptive ones such as incrementalism. To assume that decision modes vary in response to environmental factors might be a more fruitful basis for analysis. This is the point of departure for the present paper, which offers a conceptual framework independent of a priori assumptions about the decisionmaker's environment. Among hypotheses which are presented on the relationships between environmental and decision variables, is the suggestion that an important factor affecting the style of decisionmakers is their perception of change. An environment perceived as relatively stable or gradually changing will elicit incremental decision processes, while decisionmakers finding themselves subjected to rapid change in a turbulent environment may adopt a decision mode called entrepreneurial. This is distinguished from the incremental mode by, among other characteristics, its greater propensity for risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing interest in policy sciences-the multidisciplinary activity concerned with decision- making for social problems-and the introduction of policy science programs in a number of leading universities has highlighted the need for teaching programs in the subject. Many graduate schools of business already apply the same blend of disciplines and techniques (Economics, Management, Behavioral Science, and Quantitative Methods) to resolve intra- and interorganizational choice dilemmas facing business. Schools of business, therefore, have the potential and capabilities to deal with the specific mission of policy sciences exemplified by such activities as policy analysis, policy strategies, policy systems design, and metapolicies. At the Graduate School of Business the authors have developed a descriptive-normative framework-situational normativism-which blends the component disciplines and methodologies of policy sciences towards solving real social and interorganizational decision problems. Situational normativism avoids the traditional sharp distinction between positive and normative theory by developing an adaptive methodology wherein the descriptive behavioral model serves as the input for normative analysis and the resulting prescriptive improved solution becomes the basis for predicting and evaluating future behavior of the system. The major part of this paper discusses a policy sciences core course, developed by the authors, in which the lecture material and a key learning aspect of the course-the self-organizing student team projects-have largely been developed in relation to the situational normativism framework. The course is described with references to team projects which serve to clarify the approach taken to teaching policy science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rampant acceleration of scientific advance and technological change that seems to be required for national viability unfortunately entails a disconcerting human consequence: an explosive increase in cultural complexity bearing ominous possibilities of massive social disruption. Attainment of an adequate rate of cultural adaptation-as an idealized response to this situation-can be predicated only on the basis of deeper comprehension and creative modification of the social-institutional decisionmaking processes that comprise the cognitive modus operandi of civilized society. Recent methodological developments in management science are presented as promising theoretical resources for extending the conventional paradigm of objective rational analysis to incorporate valuative aspects of policy-level decision problems. Initially the emphasis is placed on an extension of structured rationality which constitutes one of the core-advances contributing toward emergence of the policy sciences as a legitimate supradiscipline. With its secondary emphasis on the concept "institutional self-organization," this paper represents an attempt to (1) capitalize early on a particular feature of optimal organization and (2) bring this feature immediately to bear as a consideration in institutional systems design. The concept of a "national administrative research agency" is put forward as an institutional prototype embodying the innovative organizational format needed in order to connect theoretical and practical aspects of social problem solving. The significance of this prototype lies in its implication for achievement of a deliberately self-transforming society, a purposefully adaptive version of the social order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article emphasizes that the computer software is not the single factor that is or will be the most important variable in the long haul to improvement of existing public policymaking. It raises several questions regarding computers' potential to improve decision-making. There are doubts about the future effect of the computer on administrative responsibility, accountability, and responsiveness. The article expresses apprehension about the relevance of contemporary computer education for policymakers in university programs aimed at training the new breed of policy analyst.

This paper examines some of the distinctive features of the educational policy formation system. First, the formal goals of education are discussed and their relation to the policy formation system is examined. The main characteristics reviewed are problems caused by the intangibility of many educational goals; means-ends relationships; the inconsistency of educational goals; priority ordering of goals and weighting of educational goals; and the cost of goals. The second section discusses environmental influences on policy formation, emphasizing the dominant role of the environment in policymaking and its influence on other characteristics of the education system. In the third section, the influences of internal actors on the education policy formation are analyzed, especially the influence of teachers and the managerial apparatus. The fourth section examines decisionmaking processes in education. They are characterized by a lack of feedback; limited use of analysis and limited search for alternatives; incremental change as the main pattern of decisionmaking; wide discretion and the need for heuristic methods. The last section is devoted to a normative review of analytical approaches to education policy formation and a critical examination of their potentialities and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary purpose of this paper is to analyze the "determinants" of migration between Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) in the United States. The magnitudes in which various factors have influenced inter-SMSA migration are estimated both for the country as a whole and for individual SMSA's. The "migration elasticities" estimated for individual SMSA's are in turn used to test several additional hypo- theses concerning migrant behavior. Other similar migration studies have found "wrong" signs or insignificant coefficients on certain variables a priori thought to play a crucial role in the migration process. Finally, we present clues to the causes of such "surprising" results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of destination choices among metropolitan bound migrants in an already highly urban society is a means toward gauging trends in the urbanization process. The results of this paper indicated that destination choices were strongly influenced by SMSA size, with larger SMSAs and particularly their suburban rings attractive to migrants. This pattern suggested the further growth of the larger SMSAs, to the detriment of those smaller in size. In addition, the varied status of migrants entering the ring pointed toward its increased heterogeneity. Yet, among small SMSAs, the central city received more and higher-status migrants than the ring. Here, destination choice was also linked to similarity to the migrant's past residence. Regional differences emerged, and a closer examination of small and very large SMSAs suggested that destination choices were influenced by previous patterns of urban growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that the Economics Department of the City College of New York in New York City will sponsor an all-day conference on economic analysis of public-decision-making and public processes on May 16, 1974. Objective of the conference; Publication of the papers delivered at the conference.

It has more than once been suggested by researchers in the field of community decision-making that results reported by others are more a reflection of political ideology than of "actual" community decision-making processes. A tendency to perceive a more elitist, centralized type of decision-making structure has been ascribed to sociologists, at least as contrasted to their colleagues in political science departments. It has also been argued that adoption of the reputational technique for studying community decision-making will almost inevitably bias the findings toward a more centralized type of decision-making structure. The preference at least during the 1950 of sociologists for the reputational method and of political scientists for either the decisional method or some combination of methods in addition to the reputational method, has been posited as an intervening variable explaining the differences in findings between persons in the two disciplines. While the general interpretation is upheld in that the community structural characteristics were enormously more important than discipline or method in predicting the type of power structure, the particular community structural characteristics, of course, are far from deterministic of the type of community power structure.

The most recent response of our universities to the challenge presented by the urban crisis-the domestic problems that show their dramatic symptoms in our cities-has taken the form of new graduate programs in the policy sciences. They are widely diverse in course content, teaching methods, measures to assure experiential inputs and devices for survival in the standard discipline-oriented university climate, but all have the common purpose of improving the quality and enlarging the quantity of both public policy practitioners and analysts. These pioneering activities are growing in an atmosphere of intense intellectual debate and self-examination. How best to design and conduct them with respect to these input parameters, appropriate overall roles for universities in policy science training, the nature of more "rational" decisionmaking as a process, and the roles of policy science-trained analysts and practitioners in it and in promoting it, are all under lively examination and discussion. What has thus far received relatively little attention is the nature of the decision universe in which the products of these programs, the graduates, will need to perform if they are to have impact. In this paper that universe and the relationship of the university to it are characterized in simple market terms. Doing so suggests that the most pressing problems for policy science lie on the demand, not the supply, side of the market. It will take the best efforts of policy scientists to address them successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that some basic unresolved conceptual difficulties related to PPB have been swept under a jargonistic rug and that too much burden has been placed on the hapless bureaucrats responsible for its implementation. For example, although we live in a world of interrelated goals and means, PPB formats are designed for a world of separable goals and means. Several needed modifications of current PPB procedures are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judging from the quantity of published studies, the measurement of subjective factors, such as attitudes, is much more frequent than the measurement of behavior. Although measuring subjective responses is of course valuable, one may additionally want to know how an actor behaves, what he actually does given a position on an attitude, belief, or opinion scale. The difficulties lie in the time-consuming, expensive nature of obtaining behavioral observations, combined with the technical problem of devising techniques suitable to the natural setting in which the behavior occurs. There are, of course, ways to study behavior outside the laboratory. Techniques range from participant-observation to self-reports and various observer activities accounting schemes. Assuming that the research goal requires collecting quantifiable data on what actors actually do and sufficient eases for multivariate analysis, observation and self-reports present practical problems in the number of units which can be observed or, in the case of self-report records, "talked into" cooperating. Continuous observation of one person over a time period is not required to obtain behavioral measures representing that time period. This frees the observer to record the behavior of others in the population under study, thus increasing the number of cases, which can be studied within a given budget of time and money.

The application of the utility-maximization hypothesis to decision-making within private and political business firms appears to be very fruitful. Several testable propositions were deduced, and a critical review of the published evidence pertaining to the electric power industry generally supports the approach taken. The main findings pertaining to the electric power industry are as follows. The regulation of privately-owned firms seems to yield, among other things, a slightly lower structure of rates which is more favorable to the larger users, and to industrial users in particular, relative to other, more numerous user groups. There is also growing support for the Averch-Johnson overcapitalization hypothesis. The information regarding the consequences of government ownership is richer and more varied, particularly as a result of Peltzman's imaginative research. More specifically, the evidence suggests that municipal firms, relative to privately-owned regulated firms, in general will: charge lower prices; have greater capacity; spend more on plant construction; have higher operating costs; engage in less wealth-maximizing price discrimination, including fewer peak-related tariffs; relate price discrimination less closely to the demand and supply conditions applicable to each group of users; favor business relative to residential users; offer a smaller variety of output; change prices less frequently and in response to larger changes in economic determinants; adopt cost-reducing innovations less readily; maintain managers in office longer; exhibit greater variation in rates of return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ponders on the concept of voter rationality. Definition of the voting act; Role of identity and psychological variables in voting behavior; Information on the determinants of electoral choice.

Looks at how the entry the entry of new members into an established group alters the group's provision of a pure public good for itself when that aggregate provision of the public good is regulated by myopic and Cournot type individualism. Description of cournot behavior; Effect of new entrants on group provision; Factors that affect group provision.

Looks at the role of the theory of games in the nature of bargaining process. Relationship between institutions ad transaction costs; Factors that affect private bargains; Key elements of transaction costs.

Discusses the game-theoretic models of bloc-voting under proportional representation. Information on the use of game theory in the analysis of electoral strategy; Scope of electoral law; Information on game theory.

There has been a significant shift in government towards decentralized power and responsibility as exemplified by the State and Local Assistance Act. The trend occurs at a time when society faces the double challenge of encouraging more and better informed, public participation in decision-making, and also improving the efficiency in governmental delivery of services. A proposal is made to use general revenue sharing moneys to meet this dual challenge through a revenue sharing voucher program (RSVP). The program entails turning back to citizens the incoming funds in the form of vouchers to be allocated by them to various local government agencies. The implications for the City of Seattle are discussed as an example of the operation and the tradeoffs involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most developing countries strategic decision-making has been largely based on false premises that have led to destructive results. One set of false premises stems from the assumption that development can be dissociated from the destructively exponential growth in developed countries, from the limits on the planet's physical resources and from complex ecological linkages. Another set is grounded on the popular myths of entrenched development economics: particularly, the enshrining of GNP as the overall indicator of "progress," and the concomitant withdrawal of attention from poverty and concentrated wealth, unemployment, and the injurious effects of many "modern" technologies. These destructive premises tend to reinforce the evolving institutions of new-style empire and oligarchy. More successful development requires standing present development policies on their head through development goals calling for (1) a recognition of redistributive and nonmaterial growth possibilities, (2) redistributive, material and nonmaterial growth in developing countries, (3) redistributive, nonmaterial growth in overdeveloped countries, with a major slowing down of material consumption, (4) large-scale employment projects in developing countries, and (5) the fostering and use of more constructive technologies. All such shifts, however, would require-and tend to lead toward-substantial, long-term changes in the sociopolitical structure of developing countries and the world society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telephone conference calls could be used to extend participation in public decision-making. In order to clarify the involved problems and prospects we conducted 16 nine-member conference calls discussing and voting on a public issue. The discussions were recorded for analysis and a questionnaire was administered. The meetings worked well despite the isolation of the participants and the lack of visual contact. Access to the floor was easy, attention good, and participation was eager. The participants felt that the analysis of the topic had been effective. The chairman's guidance of the discussion was judged effective, and his actions legitimate. Additionally, the data suggest what we might call greater "intellectual elbow room"-less pressure to go along with the group opinion than in face-to-face meetings, and more ease in changing opinions and positions. The disagreements about the issue did not spill over into emotional hostility. The participants were quite pleased with the conduct and efficacy of the electronic meetings. These findings suggest that a mass participatory system, based upon such electronic meetings, can also be used to provide wider involvement in decision-making in our society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New York City's Office of Neighborhood Government was created in 1971 to coordinate renewed attempts at decentralizing municipal operations. The decentralization was primarily of an administrative nature, with emphasis on expanding district (neighborhood) management. This study examined decision-making at the district level. The major focus of inquiry was the nature of decision-making responsibilities in five municipal agencies, and the degree to which district officers acted as autonomous managers before and after administrative decentralization had occurred. The results showed that major shifts in responsibilities occurred only in one management function, inter-agency communication. For other functions, such as budget and personnel allocations, priority setting, and information gathering, central headquarters retained major decision-making responsibility. The study thus casts doubt on administrative decentralization as a feasible alternative for reorganizing municipal services to increase service responsiveness to neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Q methodology is employed for purposes of providing an instrumental base to Lasswell's concept of the continuing decision seminar. Policy-making is regarded as essentially subjective and value-laden in nature, hence the use of instruments to assist in the micromodeling of complex decision processes-as embodied in decision seminars-must give centrality to human judgment. The factor-analytic procedures proposed arc applied first to a life-history seminar. Suggestions are then made for the extension of these methods to future seminars, decision-making, and to the policy sciences more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faithful readers of "The American Sociologist," will be relieved to learn that the term pluralism has taken on a stature in the study of community power sufficiently exalted to merit debunking at the hands of Wissenssoziologen. No one concerned with scientific revolutions can fail to applaud this late development in what had threatened to become a moribund twig upon the tree of knowledge. The Pluralist state of affairs so described usually has one or more characteristics like the following dispersion of power among many rather than a few participants in decision making; competition or conflict among political leaders, specialization of leaders to relatively restricted sets of issue areas; bargaining rather than hierarchical decision making; elections in winch suffrage is relatively wide spread as a major determinant of participation in key decisions; bases of influence over decisions relatively dispersed rather than closely held; and so on.

The article presents information on game theory, prisoner's dilemma, and some recent discussions of the dilemma by some of those who take a "moral point of view." The term "game theory" is generally used to refer to a branch of mathematics dealing with decision-making processes through attempting to simulate mathematically a situation of decision-making so as to discover the most rational decision. The Prisoner's Dilemma is a 2-person, non-zero-sum, non-cooperative game first devised by mathematician A.W. Tucker in the early 1950's.

Discusses a survey of the German contributions to the economic theory of politics. Surveys and general articles; Party competition and government behavior; Voting problems and decision-making mechanisms; Theory of groups; Application to practical problems.

Deals with normative assumptions in the study of public choice. Meta-ethical assumptions from economics; Details of the formalization feature of economic ethics; Transfer of scientific concepts into normative discourse; Description of substantive ethical assumptions.

Examines the decision-making process of the charitable, professional, athletic, social and other organizations that are found throughout the U.S. society. Assumptions used as basis for the mathematical model of democratic organization; Evaluation of the improvement in decision-making efficiency that will result by restricting the voting power to the more competent members; Verification of the model.

Presents a study which focused on mathematical conditions for the existence of stable outcomes in voting games in the U.S. Discussion of the concepts of stability and of decision making costs; Computation for the voting population; Presentation of decision-cost models with ellipsoidal preference sets.

Economists stress the role of differences in relative prices (or costs) in explaining observed behavior. However, the full potential of this type of analysis for clarifying a number of fundamental socio-political issues involving "collective" (or "public") goods has not yet been fully realized. With scattered but notable exceptions, writers in the area have focused on what "should be," neglecting the question of more traditional scientific interest of what "will be." We propose to provide a step towards the development of a complete comparative statics of collective goods at the same time we begin to explore some of its implications. To start with, the notion of a collective good is placed in the context of some recent advances in consumer theory. Part 1 then examines the factors causing differences in the costs of private, relative to collective, goods and, hence, in the proportion of any desire gratified by each type of good. Some demand side factors are also analyzed. Part II explores the role of differences in relative costs in determining the selection of a collective decision making mechanism: central planning or the market. The latter choice can be regarded as a special case of choice among alternative collective modes of gratifying desires, which is the second half of a complete comparative statics of collective goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming voter uncertainty and ignorance of other voter preferences we have for sophisticated trading (as defined above) established the following results. 1. Vote trading is a decentralized method of obtaining information on voter preferences that results in a close approximation of the maximum utility gain possible under voting. 2. Vote trading generally tends to higher aggregate social utility than simple-majority voting. The maximum conceivable gain from vote trading is 100 percent. 3. In situations where there exists a minority-majority split, the gains from trading over majority rule are expected to be larger the narrower the size difference between majority and minority and the more different their weighting of the importance of issues. 4. In addition to gains in efficiency, vote trading generally improves the equity of the voting process by narrowing the dispersion of utility gains of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on Pareto-optimal group decision process in insurance schemes. Information on Pareto-optimal decision process; Factors that affect optimality; Description of the operations of insurance markets.

Presents a bibliography of works in public choice, 1967-1969.

Attempts to construct the rudiments of a system of cost accounting to be used in the evaluation of the costs of employing decision makers and decision procedures. Three types of costs; Examination and modification of certain results of other theorists regarding the relations between bargaining and protection; Costs of over- and underpinning from the point of view of inventory problems.

Addresses the power and importance of the mean preference in a mathematical model of democratic choice. Basis of the model; Factors that affect individual preferences; Discussion on the mean preference in a model of democratic choice.

Discusses the marginal utility of a vote commitment. Economic framework for collective decisions; Information on the measurement and validation of utility; Impact of marginal utility on the outcome of collective decision.

Explains the tendency in a two-party electoral system to adopt similar policies. Description of alternative policies; Components of the electorate; Information on several models that support the idea that a two-party electoral system has the tendency to adopt similar policies.

There is an implicit assumption in most policy studies that once a policy has been formulated the policy will be implemented. This assumption is invalid for policies formulated in many Third World nations and for types of policies in Western societies. Third World governments tend to formulate broad, sweeping policies, and governmental bureaucracies often lack the capacity for implementation. Interest groups, opposition parties, and affected individuals and groups often attempt to influence the implementation of policy rather than the formulation of policy. A model of the policy implementation process is presented. Policy implementation is seen as a tension generating force in society. Tensions are generated between and within four components of the implementing process: idealized policy, implementing organization, target group, and environmental factors. The tensions result in transaction patterns which may or may not match the expectations of outcome of the policy formulators. The transaction patterns may become crystallized into institutions. Both the transaction patterns and the institutions may generate tensions which, by feedback to the policymakers and implementors, may support or reject further implementation of the policy. By application of the model, policymakers can attempt to minimize disruptive tensions which can result in the failure of policy outcomes to match policy expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A model of resource allocations within a hierarchical bureaucracy is presented. Since at the departmental level programs of other departments overlap on certain objectives, allocations independently determined by departments are not optimal. It is well known that if only budgetary guidelines are transmitted by a central decision maker they are insufficient to assure desired allocations. A minimal set of guidelines exist which, when transmitted to departmental advisors, result in desired allocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisionmaking under uncertainty is visualized as a game against nature. The policymaker is the player and has a set of alternatives or strategies from which he desires to choose the most effective. He is confronted with a variety of possible states of nature that may evolve after his decision is made The key states of nature are identified and their interactive relationship to the strategy options are specified. Important roles in the resulting analysis are played by the probabilities of successful project initiation and implementation. It is shown that neglect of the inherent uncertainty aspects leads to evaluations (benefit-cost ratios) of proposed reforms and projects which can be seriously upward biased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]