ABSTRACT
At the most general level, efforts to weigh the benefits and costs of a public or private decision involve some version of the type of rational analysis presented in this book. At one extreme this decision process can take the form of a list of pluses and minuses, as in the quote by Benjamin Franklin. At the other extreme the decision process can include efforts to measure all relevant benefits and costs using a common scale such as dollars in order to determine the wisdom of a decision. In either case, the goal is to organize and compare the various effects of a decision in order to choose the action that most effectively improves individual or societal well-being.
