Following the Green Book came some outstanding publications from
the research and academic communities. Several volumes which appeared
during the past twenty-five years have gone much further in clarifying
the basic ideas underlying benefit-cost analysis and the methods for
quantifying them. Eckstein ( 1958) Water Resource Development: The
Economics of Project Evaluation is particularly outstanding for its careful
review and critique of federal agency practice with respect to benefit-
cost analysis. Water Supply: Economics Technology and Policy, a clear exposition
of principles together with applications to several important cases, was
prepared by Hirschleifer, DeHaven, and Milliman ( 1960). A later study--
Design of Water Resource Systems--especially notable for its deep probing
into applications of systems analysis and computer technology within the
framework of benefit-cost analysis, was produced by a group of economists,
engineers, and hydrologists at Harvard (Maass and coauthors, 1962). The
intervening years have seen considerable further work on the technique
and a gradual expansion of it to areas outside the water resources field,
some of them more or less natural extensions of the work on water
resources. For example, the last two decades have seen many attempts to
evaluate the benefits of outdoor recreation--both water-related and
otherwise. A relatively recent book by Mishan ( 1976) looks at some
applications other than water-related ones, but is in the mainstream of
traditional benefit-cost analysis.

But the most striking development in recent years has been the
application of benefit-cost analysis to the economic and environmental
consequences of new technologies and scientific and regulatory programs.
For example, the Atomic Energy Commission (before the Energy Resources
and Development Administration and its successor, the Department of
Energy, were created) used the technique to evaluate the fast breeder
reactor program. The AEC published a report on this study in 1972.
The technique has also been applied to other potential sources of
environmental pollution and hazard. Two studies--one by the National
Academy of Sciences ( 1974) and the other reported by Clement J. Jackson
and coauthors ( 1976)--come to quite contrary conclusions regarding
automotive emissions control. Other studies have been or are being

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