Cost-benefit calculation

The fiscal regime (or tax system) in some countries allows the cost of exploration and appraisal (E A) activity to be offset against existing income as a fiscal allowance before the taxable income is calculated. For a taxpaying company, the real cost of appraisal is therefore reduced, and this should be recognised in performing the cost-benefit calculations. 

To maintain the target level for temperature, a specific amount of insulation may be needed, since too little insulation makes it impossible to keep the temperature levels. For each building it is necessary to make a detailed cost-benefit calculation of insulation and heating/cooling costs. The same discussion is applicable to temperature variation requirements, both for the rate of change and the period lengths (see Chapter 16). 

USEPA performed post hoc cost-benefit calculations and sensitivity analyses for several regulatory options (41). Population exposure calculations were prepared for pre- and postregulation scenarios, and risks were calculated by using the CAG multistage model. A cost of 200,000 per cancer case avoided was assumed on the basis of both earnings and social value. 

Subtle problems exist in interpreting policy research results in this area, since the rationale for government support may change dramatically as industries evolve and mature and as shifts in public values and opinions affect cost/benefit calculations. These problems become less difficult to the extent that longitu-... 

But if you come to them with a pharmacoeconomics study or a cost-benefit calculation and show that yours is a once-a-day dosage form and the others are three-times-a-day, and people are more compliant, there ll be better blood pressure control and fewer strokes, saving them tons of money, they ll say, Alright, 90 cents it is. ... 

Our numerical simulations and the econometric research we reviewed also make us conclude that workers compensation insurance encourages workplace safety. Because increased workplace injuries raise a firm s insurance premiums workers compensation acts as a tax on injuries. As with any tax employers can limit payments by reducing the activity taxed. If the cost of purchasing WC falls more than the cost of new safety equipment or safety education programs then the firm will pay more attention to workplace safety. WTien strongly experience rated workers compensation insurance leads firms to the cost-benefit calculations necessary for cost effective safety expenditures. 

Any waste minimisation project will cost money to implement. As discussed earlier, this money has to come eventually from sales of product. If company profits are to be maintained or increased then the cost of the waste minimisation project must be justified against this criterion from the outset. It is therefore useful at this point to consider the costs and benefits of waste minimisation to provide a framework for cost/benefit calculations. It is vital to carry out this exercise for any project designed to... 

Other catalysts for clean Friedel-Craft reactions, the so-called Enviro-cats, have been developed for industrial use and are described in detail elsewhere. These supported reagents can easily be removed from the reaction mixture and recycled. It is claimed that their use, when compared with aluminium trichloride, reduces volumes of waste to be treated by 30% and waste disposal costs by 50%. They cost 10 times the price of aluminium trichloride but, in a cost/benefit calculation, show sound economic sense and sound environmental practice. 

An NHP with two RUTA-20 reactor units offers heat at low cost due to the simplicity of design, the modular method of construction and low manning requirements. The main input data used in the cost-benefit calculations are as follows ... 

In practice, of course, even the limited safety incentives inherent in the model are illusory. Workers do not have any satisfactory way of assessing risks and making cost/benefit calculations (Slovic, Fischhoff and Lichtenstein 1985). Indeed, they may be quite unaware of the risks. And if the risks concern matters of health (e.g. cancer), where the costs may have to be borne years later, these costs may be discounted in ways which lead to outcomes which are very far from optimal for the individual worker. Furthermore, the costs will be borne not only by the worker concerned but also by members of his or her family, who may have had no part in the original decision, and by the wider society, which is called upon to provide health services, disability pensions and the like. 

Nelkin (1985 15) suggests that the emotional distress caused by exposure to risks is often ignored, especially in cost-benefit calculations. 

When senior personnel were asked specifically about the costs of health and safety, they differentiated between the marginal costs imposed by new health and safety legislation and the absolute costs of health and safety. The extra costs incurred by legislative changes were considered to be minimal because it was believed that the railways already voluntarily met minimum legislative standards. But they did admit that while they complied with most Railway Inspectorate requirements, they did not always do so because of their costs. In such cases cost-benefit calculations came into prominence ... 

In many cases the design is not dictated by the purchaser, but influences the decision to buy the product based on the requirements of the task. Once the full life of a component or process has been understood, as identified in point form above, then a cost-benefit calculation can be performed. This involves two sides of an equation. One side entails the costs relating to the reduction of the risk or problem and the other side entails the estimated monetary value of the gains from controlling the risk or problem - the benefit. The following is an example of costs and benefits associated with a safety plan ... 

Karat [19] is approaching the usability benefits through cost-benefit calculation of human factors work. This viewpoint is different from the other analyzed usability cost-benefit models. There are some examples of identified potential benefits. The benefits are identified as ... 

The late-Office of Technology Assessment (OTA, 1978) commented that many of the regulations introduced in the 1970s were not subjected to a formal cost-benefit analysis. Twenty years later it is now possible with the benefit of hindsight to form some opinion as to which, if any, of these regulations were beneficial. This book is not able to undertake any original cost-benefit calculations, but will draw inferences based on analyses of accident rates and other pertinent data. 

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