| dc.description.abstract | Social Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is the most useful branch of welfare economics
especially in the appraisal of public projects in developing countries. In practice it is
controversial due to its basis in value judgments. This study surveyed existing practices
by practitioners in the light of its methodological shortcomings.
It found out that CBA has still not taken root in Kenya. To many in Kenya the discipline
is still in its infancy stages, infact some do not know of such a technique while others
only have a very slight idea of what it is. The study also found out that for those who
undertake this exercise, the greatest difficulties they encounter have to do with valuation
and shadow pricing for items that normally do not have market prices. Another finding
was that, undertaking CBA is not a futile exercise; it actually increases project
performance, in spite of the fact that this branch of welfare economics has been widely
criticized.
Those who do not undertake CBA, give reasons that are all related to its core tenets of
imputing monetary values to all items for the sake of economic formulae geared towards efficiency. According to the findings of the study, one of the major limitations that make
CBA less worthwhile to use is that it conceives reality as static rather than as dynamic
and that only a few factors under CBA can be varied at a time. Consequently it is
proposes the dynamic conception of projects and the project environment by project
designers as a viable alternative.
This also has implications for educators and planners in public sector projects. However
the challenges of adopting this holistic perspective should not be underestimated given
the heavy institutional investment in existing orthodox economic methodologies.
Key words: Projects, appraisal, social cost benefit analysis, systems dynamics, and
complexity. | en |
