ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the identification of such social value in practice. The need to take into account natural and social resources when valuing human well being and evaluating related development strategies seems to question traditional approaches to valuation of assets and valuation of actions. The reason for pursuing value for money in economic analysis was classically formulated by Lionel Robbins when describing economics as the 'science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative ends'. The socioeconomic analysis is employed to examine the relationships between the value of the output which will be achieved by any particular decision, against the costs of the input needed to achieve that output. The aim is to find the best possible, or the optimal, amongst the options. By definition this should achieve the maximization of human welfare.
