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 a basic level, this decision process can take the form of a list of pluses and minuses, as in the quote from Benjamin Franklin, or a list of factors favoring one choice over another. At a more advanced level, this rational decision process can include efforts to measure all relevant benefits and costs using a common scale such as dollars in order to determine a course of action that maximizes the difference between the total benefits and costs of the choice. At any level, the goal of an organized decision-making process is to analyze the various effects of a decision in order to make the choice that most effectively improves individual or societal well-being.
