HomeGlossaryCost-benefit analysis
Cost-benefit analysis
A structured way to compare the gains and losses of a policy or project, often using monetized impacts and explicit discounting of future effects.
Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) asks whether society is better off after a proposed rule, infrastructure project, or environmental standard. Practitioners quantify benefits and costs where possible, discount future streams to present value, and sometimes sensitivity-test assumptions.
In the rise of the economist’s hour, CBA became a lingua franca in agencies and courts—a way to make trade-offs legible and contestable without pretending arithmetic removes politics.
Reading the numbers
Metrics in this app (trade totals, and later jobs or sector data) are inputs analysts might feed into broader CBAs: they rarely settle a policy alone, but they anchor conversation about who gains, who loses, and over what horizon.