Economic Valuation and Cost-Benefit Analysis Training Course

Participants can create a structured inventory of material effects and realistic alternatives.

• Longlist project alternatives including scale, timing, technology and location
• Impact pathways linking inputs, outputs, outcomes and welfare changes
• Materiality screening for costs and benefits requiring monetary valuation
• Stakeholder mapping identifies who gains, loses, pays and bears risk
• Causal diagrams distinguish direct effects, indirect effects and transfers
• Appraisal registers document assumptions, data sources and ownership

Participants can specify credible without-project scenarios and incremental effects.

• Baseline forecasts built from observed trends, policies and committed investments
• Counterfactual scenarios reflect plausible behaviour without the proposed intervention
• Additionality tests separate project effects from planned market changes
• Deadweight, displacement and substitution effects in programme appraisal
• Attribution risks assessed through control groups, comparators and contribution analysis
• Time profiles align implementation milestones with benefit realisation

Participants can convert financial projections into economic resource flows.

• Financial model review identifies taxes, subsidies, financing and transfer payments
• Conversion factors adjust distorted market prices toward opportunity costs
• Shadow wage rates reflect unemployment, skills scarcity and labour mobility
• Border pricing estimates tradable inputs using import and export parity
• Non-tradable goods valued through standard conversion factors and local evidence
• Working capital, depreciation and debt treatment in economic cash flows

Participants can estimate demand-related benefits using welfare-based measures.

• Demand forecasting combines historic use, elasticities and stated uptake assumptions
• Consumer surplus measures benefits beyond observed prices and revenues
• Rule-of-half estimates benefits from incremental demand under linear demand
• Generalised cost combines fares, travel time, reliability and access effort
• Avoided cost methods value reduced service use and resource consumption
• Unit benefit assumptions tested against observed behaviour and research evidence

Participants can select and apply appropriate methods for environmental impacts.

• Externality pathways connect emissions, exposure, damage and welfare loss
• Damage cost estimates value air pollution, noise and greenhouse gases
• Abatement cost methods value impacts using least-cost mitigation alternatives
• Ecosystem service categories distinguish provisioning, regulating and cultural benefits
• Physical impact models translate project changes into measurable environmental outcomes
• Avoiding double counting between ecosystem services and market outputs

Participants can evaluate revealed-preference evidence for non-market values.

• Travel cost method infers recreational value from visitor expenditures
• Hedonic pricing isolates environmental attributes within property market transactions
• Production function approaches value ecosystem inputs to marketed outputs
• Averting behaviour reveals willingness to pay for risk reduction
• Demand specification choices affect estimates, confidence intervals and transferability
• Revealed preference limitations: data gaps, selection bias and omitted variables

Participants can judge when stated-preference methods provide usable valuation evidence.

• Contingent valuation elicits willingness to pay under defined scenarios
• Choice experiments estimate attribute values from repeated stated selections
• Survey design addresses scope, payment vehicles and respondent information
• Sampling frames, protest responses and non-response bias affect validity
• Econometric outputs translate preference estimates into welfare measures
• Validity checks test scope sensitivity, plausibility and strategic bias

Participants can adapt existing valuation evidence without overstating precision.

• Benefit transfer screens studies for population, site and policy similarity
• Unit value transfer applies adjusted estimates with documented limitations
• Function transfer uses transferred relationships between attributes and value
• Meta-analysis synthesises valuation studies using explanatory study characteristics
• Evidence hierarchies rank primary studies, reviews and administrative datasets
• Transfer protocols record adjustments for income, price levels and context

Participants can appraise resource projects with depletion, restoration and closure effects.

• Resource rent separates extraction value from produced capital returns
• Depletion accounts track physical stocks, extraction rates and remaining life
• Mine closure costs include remediation, monitoring and post-closure liabilities
• Water allocation values compare agricultural, industrial, domestic and ecological uses
• Opportunity costs capture foregone ecosystem services and alternative land uses
• Restoration benefits assessed through ecological recovery trajectories and uncertainty

Participants can apply time-value assumptions appropriate to economic appraisal.

• Social discount rates reflect intertemporal welfare and public opportunity cost
• Declining discount schedules address long-lived environmental and climate impacts
• Discount factor tables convert annual economic flows into present values
• Residual value estimates remaining service potential at appraisal horizon
• Economic asset lives reflect maintenance, utilisation and technological obsolescence
• Real and nominal terms kept consistent with inflation assumptions

Participants can build a transparent economic model and calculate decision metrics.

• Model architecture separates inputs, calculations, outputs and quality checks
• Annual benefit and cost streams follow the agreed implementation timeline
• Net present value aggregates discounted incremental economic net benefits
• Benefit-cost ratio compares discounted benefits with discounted economic costs
• Economic internal rate of return solves the discount rate threshold
• Model audit checks signs, units, formulas and linked assumptions

Participants can test the reliability of appraisal results under uncertain conditions.

• One-way sensitivity analysis tests material assumptions within credible ranges
• Scenario analysis combines correlated changes into coherent future conditions
• Switching values identify assumptions required to reverse project ranking
• Monte Carlo simulation generates probability distributions for net present value
• Probability distributions selected using evidence, expert judgement and bounded ranges
• Risk registers connect model variables with mitigation actions and owners

Participants can show how costs and benefits are distributed among stakeholder groups.

• Incidence analysis allocates economic effects among households, firms and government
• Distributional weights reflect differing marginal utility of income assumptions
• Disaggregation exposes geographic, gender, income and disability effects
• Compensation tests distinguish aggregate efficiency from fairness concerns
• Affordability analysis examines user charges against household income profiles
• Equity narratives explain material effects not captured by monetary weights

Participants can align an appraisal package with common public investment expectations.

• HM Treasury Green Book principles for options, optimism bias and appraisal
• World Bank economic analysis frames project benefits, costs and sustainability
• Results frameworks connect investment rationale with measurable development outcomes
• Optimism bias uplifts adjust early estimates for systematic underestimation
• Reference class forecasting compares proposals with completed similar projects
• Appraisal assurance requirements define review gates, evidence and accountability

Participants can assess data quality and interpret econometric evidence for valuation inputs.

• Data dictionaries define variables, units, sources, dates and transformations
• Descriptive statistics reveal outliers, missingness and implausible value ranges
• Regression evidence distinguishes association, prediction and causal interpretation
• Confidence intervals communicate estimation uncertainty around valuation parameters
• Price indices and purchasing power adjustments maintain monetary comparability
• Triangulation compares administrative records, surveys, literature and expert judgement

Participants can prepare an auditable model for independent review and approval.

• Version control records model changes, reviewers, dates and approval status
• Assumption logs distinguish evidence-based inputs from management judgements
• Formula reviews trace source cells, calculations and output dependencies
• Reconciliation checks align physical quantities, financial forecasts and economic values
• Independent challenge tests optimism, omissions and unsupported causal claims
• Audit trails preserve source documents, calculations and decision revisions

Participants can present appraisal findings clearly to technical and non-technical decision-makers.

• Executive summaries state recommendation, economic case and critical uncertainties
• Options tables compare net present value, distributional effects and delivery risks
• Tornado charts rank assumptions by influence on appraisal results
• Value-for-money narratives combine efficiency, equity, risk and strategic fit
• Technical annexes document methods, sources, conversion factors and calculations
• Decision memos specify approvals sought, conditions and monitoring commitments

Participants can design monitoring arrangements that test whether projected value is realised.

• Benefits realisation plans assign indicators, targets, owners and reporting cycles
• Monitoring baselines capture pre-project conditions before implementation begins
• Ex-post evaluation compares actual outcomes against appraisal forecasts
• Process evaluation diagnoses delivery failures, delays and implementation adaptations
• Impact evaluation designs use comparison groups, before-after data and contribution analysis
• Lessons registers feed completed project evidence into future appraisal assumptions

Participants can build, review and present a complete cost-benefit analysis for a proposed investment.

• Select a decision problem, alternatives and defensible counterfactual baseline
• Build economic cash flows using documented valuations and conversion factors
• Calculate NPV, benefit-cost ratio and economic internal rate of return
• Test conclusions through sensitivity, scenarios, switching values and simulation
• Review stakeholder incidence, material externalities and unresolved evidence gaps
• Present recommendation, conditions, limitations and benefits realisation measures