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This article highlights the factors to consider in a cost-benefit analysis. The purpose of this paper will be to argue that the summation of total money gains and losses (including surpluses) does not in general indicate satisfaction of these tests. In fact, positive net money gains may be observed even when compensation is not possible and vice versa. Furthermore, when comparing alternative projects or policies, the one with the largest net gain is not necessarily the best one in the compensation test sense. Since people cannot rely on money surplus measures to determine the best course of action, there may be no alternative but to incorporate interpersonal comparisons regarding the marginal social utility of incomes to different groups into the cost-benefit analysis.

It is informed that the need for surveys of special populations is increasing but locating these special samples is often time-consuming and expensive. The necessary screening is usually done before the actual interview as a separate phase conducted either in person or by phone. However, it is expensive to pay interviewers to go from door to door. This article describes a study in which random digit dialing was used successfully in screening to obtain household information necessary to select a special sample. In this way, unpublished numbers and new listings had a chance of being included. Thus there was a savings in cost, and nearly all households with telephones were included in the sample. It is concluded that random digit dialing may be used to obtain the household information necessary to locate special populations. It may also be feasible and economical to use this procedure prior to general population surveys. With the sampling techniques presently available, and if care is taken in the design of the data-collection instrument, screening by telephone with random digit dialing can be faster and less expensive than any other method.

This article discusses the survey on cost-benefit analysis. It is a practical way of assessing the desirability of projects. Judgment plays an important role in the estimation of benefit-cost ratios which little significance can be attached to the accurate numerical results obtained. Quantification and evaluation of benefits does not give clue to the charges which consumers are willing to pay. Thus, there is the possibility that some methods of charging may reduce the benefits of the project below the maximum possible. The case for using cost-benefit analysis is strengthened if its limitations are openly recognized and emphasized. But it is not expected that this technique is useful if a project is so large as to alter the whole complex of relative prices and outputs.

This study provides a systematic analysis of relationships between attributes of innovations in one segment of agriculture and the rate at which those innovations have been accepted by farm operators. In several respects the data support other studies and discussions of the role of attributes of innovations in adoption: those new farm practices which are least complex and most nearly compatible with existing procedures tended to be adopted rapidly. Several other practice attributes were not related to speed of adoption in the expected manner: high cost practices were adopted at least as quickly as low cost practices; the possibility of trying an innovation on a small scale did not seem to encourage rapid adoption; and mechanical qualities, as such, were not factors in rapid adoption. Innovations which permit a saving of working time tended to be adopted rapidly, and there is some evidence for inferring that this attribute is given an unduly high priority in adoption decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the mechanism of shifting of corporate income tax in a growing economy. The traditional analysis of the incidence of the corporation income tax is concerned primarily with the process of shifting the tax rather than the measurement of the incidence of the tax. That is, the analysis is concerned with the price and quantity adjustments, and is not usually concerned with the problem of measuring the actual dollar amount of tax which is borne by any particular group of individuals. The implication is that the tax is shifted forward to consumers to the extent that corporations succeed in increasing the prices of the commodities which they sell, and is shifted backward to wage earners to the extent that corporations are able to reduce (or fail to increase) wages. The remainder of the tax is presumed to fall on stockholders. Traditional static marginal cost analysis leads to the conclusion that the tax can be shifted forward only in the long run, since investment must be reduced in order to lead to an increase in price.

The article presents the professional reasoning of an economist on problems concerning traffic safety. The author discusses the inconsistencies in estimation of the costs of the 'evils of driving', marginal cost taxation and efficiency, dependency of expenditure on revenue, differential insurance premiums, accidents as a social overhead cost, and the optimizing of institutions. Also discussed are the seven guiding principles contributing to the problem of traffic safety according to the economist's professional reasoning.

This article discusses the phenomena of war contract termination in the U.S. and the resulting problems encountered by the country. The phenomena of war contract termination and the resulting problems of readjustment of production from a war-time basis to a peace-time basis and disposition of property on hand as a result of termination are matters of the first magnitude to economists. With an estimated 100,000 prime contracts and at least 1,000,000 significant subcontracts likely to be involved in the termination program, amounting to 50 to 150 billions in the contract price of items cancelled and 85 billions of Government- owned property, the tools of the professional economist can be applied to fertile ground in the readjustment program. The economic problems of mobilization, are less difficult than those of demobilization, particularly when mobilization occurs at a time when the economy is not at full employment. In mobilization the emphasis is more on production from the engineering-efficiency viewpoint. Costs are distinctly a secondary consideration. Civilian production that is not rated essential acts in an accordion fashion absorbing the fluctuation of essential production.

The article illustrates how a classification of costs will lead to an understanding of the nature of competition and the adjustment of market prices. It explains the significance of cost analysis in economic theory and the relations between economic science and cost of production analysis. It predicts that the analysis of cost will continue to be the more important element in the attempt to explain business enterprise. It analyzes the ordinary income of a commercial business, as well as manufacturing costs. It discusses the importance of minimum rate costs or fixed costs in manufactures as distinct from additional rate costs or additional costs.

Comments on the application of benefit-cost analysis to public investment expenditures. Importance of the redistribution consequences of public investments; Revisions in theoretical welfare economics and a proposal for incorporating these revisions into benefit-cost practice; Relevance of benefit-cost analysis to public investment decisions.

The article discusses a community-planning approach to city building. The author states that in recent years various groups, including social workers, planners, sociologists, and psychiatrists, have become interested in subtleties of relationship between housing and residential environment and mental health, family stability and social structure. To understand better this vital area of community development and particularly the co-ordination of physical and social planning, it might be useful to examine the work of the Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). RPAA emphasized three elements as the foundation of its community planning synthesis. First is functional economical site planning and subdivision, encompassing large-scale or "quanta" units such as the superblock, neighborhood, or even whole communities. Second is intensive cost analysis, with special reference to capital supply and interest rates and their effect upon housing conditions and ultimately, a regional planning committed to the nurture of multiple community types, which were differentiated by size, function and the regional distribution of institutions. RPAA was unique in its broad view of urban environment as a product of residential site planning, adapted to the biological and social needs of a modern urban population.

Presents a reply to a commentary concerning benefit-cost analysis. Measurement of the income redistribution consequences of public projects; Relationship between benefit-cost analysis and project design criteria; Public implications of benefit-cost analysis.