Cost-Benefit Analysis of Multi-Level Government: The Case of EU Cohesion Policy and of US Federal Investment Policies

This book provides an original framework to assess public investment policies co-financed by Union (Federal) governments. This framework is applied to two important case studies: the EU Cohesion Policy and the US Federal Investment Policies.Cost-Benefit Analysis of Multi-Level Government sheds light on a number of outstanding issues of economic theory by extending the theory of shadow prices, and provides guidance to real-world decision makers. In particular, the following questions are addressed: Under which theoretical circumstances, higher level government intervention in Member States through investment policies is justified? Is there any new welfare economics rationale underpinning interregional equity? What is the relationship between interregional and interpersonal income distribution? How can social exclusion be included in cost-benefit tests? How can higher level government budget funds to investment policies before it bargains programming documents with lower tiers of government by considering also their response function? In these circumstances, how can optimal matching rates be derived assuming binding and non binding budgetary constraints? Can such a theoretical framework be applied for guidance to real-world decision makers? The book will be of interest to policy makers, postgraduate students and researchers in cost-benefit analysis, welfare economics, public choice, public finance, multi-level government economics, and income distribution issues.

About the Author

Dr Alessandro Ferrara gained his PhD in Economics at the Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, UK. After having been responsible for cost-benefit analysis at the Evaluation Unit, Directorate General Regional Policy, European Commission, he is currently working as a specialist in economic modelling at the Unit of Economic and Quantitative Analysis, Additionality of the same Directorate General.