Introduction to
Cost-Benefit and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Description: The tools and techniques of cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis will be presented and students will have opportunity to apply the procedures using actual case studies. Content includes: identification and measurement of costs and benefits; consideration of intangible costs and benefits; calculation of net program benefits; examination of the benefits-to-costs ratio; conducting a sensitivity analysis on assumptions; and understanding and handling risk factors. Public and private sector analysis will be contrasted. The spreadsheet EXCEL is used as a tool in conducting cost-benefit analysis. The class takes place in a computer lab where each person has a computer for illustrating techniques and making application to case examples.

Note: The Levin & McEwan text, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, 2nd Ed. (Sage 2001) will be provided to each participant.

Prerequisites: General familiarity with computers and EXCEL software.

Instructor: Professor James Edwin Kee is Professor in the Public Policy and Public Administration Department of the George Washington University, Washington, DC. Prior to joining GWU, he spent 17 years in state government in New York as legislative assistant and counsel to the State Assembly, and in Utah as State Budget Director and the first executive director of the Utah Department of Administrative Services. He served 4 years as managing editor of Public Budgeting & Finance and has published numerous articles on federal and state budget and fiscal policy, inter- governmental relations, and public management in such prestigious periodicals as the Harvard Law Review, the Public Administration Review, and Public Budgeting and Finance. His B.A. is from the University of Notre Dame and his M.P.A. and J.D. degrees from New York University where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar. He teaches public finance and courses in leadership and ethics at GWU and taught previously at New York University's Law School, the Lehman and Hunter Colleges of the City University of New York, and the University of Utah. His current research interests include the allocation of taxes among national and sub-national governments in Brazil and the People's Republic of China. He is currently lead investigator on a project for the Center for Innovation in the Public Sector on "Leadership in Change and Transformation."

Certificates: CAEP IIA.e and CQEM III.j