Abstract Environmental cost benefit analysis, CBA, is often the preferred method for economists to assess policy changes which have environmental consequences. It is argued that CBA can help governments focus their resources to maximize the social returns of investments or projects. CBA is also viewed as a useful framework for organizing disparate information and subsequently improve the decision process. Despite the enthusiasm for the method, there have been few attempts outside developed countries to assess CBA's influence on decisions. In this article we used content analysis of official documents to analyse the role played by CBA in the Colombian environmental licensing process. Our results show that CBA's influence on the final decisions has been limited. The problem, we conclude, does not reside in CBA but in the process. Although there is a procedural requirement to do CBA, there is no requirement that the results must be considered in the decision-making. Since the problem lies in the process, not the instrument, we think that merely using a non-monetary assessment method instead of CBA, such as multicriteria analysis, will not lead to better decisions. This latter point is a discussion missing from the ecological economics literature that deserves more attention.

中文翻译：

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成本效益分析是否改善了哥伦比亚的决策？来自环境许可程序的证据

摘要 环境成本效益分析（CBA）通常是经济学家评估具有环境后果的政策变化的首选方法。有人认为，CBA 可以帮助政府集中资源，最大限度地提高投资或项目的社会回报。CBA 也被视为一个有用的框架，用于组织不同的信息并随后改进决策过程。尽管人们对这种方法充满热情，但在发达国家之外，很少有人尝试评估 CBA 对决策的影响。在本文中，我们使用官方文件的内容分析来分析 CBA 在哥伦比亚环境许可过程中所扮演的角色。我们的结果表明，CBA 对最终决定的影响是有限的。我们得出结论，问题不在于 CBA，而在于过程。虽然做CBA有程序上的要求，但没有要求做决策时必须考虑结果。由于问题在于过程，而不是工具，我们认为仅使用非货币评估方法而不是CBA，例如多标准分析，不会导致更好的决策。后一点是生态经济学文献中缺失的一个值得更多关注的讨论。