In the current issue of The Economists’ Voice, the former Chief Economist for the US General Accounting Office Scott Farrow addresses the uses and abuses of Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA), also known as Cost-Benefit Analysis. He highlights some common abuses and ways to avoid them. Below you will find a few samples. His short article (only 6 pages) contains many more.
I encourage you to read the details and not to forget the advice of British economist Alan Williams who concluded in a marvelous paper in 1972 entitled “Cost-Benefit Analysis: Bastard Science? and/Or Insidious Poison in the Body Politick? that