ABSTRACT
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is probably the most widely known procedure for the analysis of economic efficiency in the public sector. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the issue in the early 1960s was to catch up on the lead that the Anglo-Americans had already gained in this field in science and application. The once touted notion that cost-benefit considerations can be incorporated into the budgetary process without any problems and made into an effective instrument for use by the Minister of Finance to ward off any unreasonable demands of the various ministries, has proved erroneous in practice. The sector which comes closest to fulfilling the legislative mandate is transport. Recent environmental economics literature nearly always points out that CBA can be employed as a useful aid in environmental policy decision making. Wicke attempted for the first time to develop a systematic estimate of all environmental damage in the Federal Republic of Germany.
