Regional Economic Impact Analysis and Project Evaluation

Maurice J. Scarlett is a professor of Geography at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland.

Davis is a professor of Community and Regional Planning at the
University of British Columbia. His book is intended as a nontechnical
introduction to the principles and techniques of regional impact
analysis and evaluation. Thus, not much of economics or mathematics is
assumed; this fact alone makes the text usable by a wide range of
students.

Part 1 devotes five chapters to regional economic impact analysis and
includes discussion of such topics as economic base input-output and
income-expenditure analysis. Part 2 deals with project evaluation and
contains three chapters on cost-benefit analysis.

The text’s nontechnical handling of the subject is supplemented where
thought necessary by brief appendices of a more mathematical
nature—for example, a single-page summary of the input-output model.
Each chapter’s content is also enriched with two case studies. While
in general these case studies are admirable, they are sometimes too
short to give the reader an appreciation of what really happened and
what was said. A case in point involves the furor over the third London
airport, which included perhaps the most intense public scrutiny ever of
the controversial assumptions underlying cost-benefit analysis: fewer
than three pages of text, far too little to examine that.

This text is well written, readable, and well balanced. It deserves to
find wide acceptance as a university course text and also among the many
people outside universities who need or want to be familiar with this
important area. It can be recommended with confidence.