Valuation Reference library
Encyclopedia of Global Change
...of a specific change in a specific good to society. The underlying ethical perspective for benefit-cost analysis is utilitarianism, which focuses attention on aggregate impacts to society as a whole, ignoring who gains and who loses. The rationale is to avoid making interpersonal comparisons of utility (for example, is change X in benefits to person 1 better from society's viewpoint than change Y in benefits to person 2?), in hopes of a more objective basis for evaluation. Thus the emphasis is on aggregating impacts that are measurable in money terms...
