IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/acb/agenda/v16y2009i3p7-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multi-Criteria Analysis: "Good Enough" for Government Work?

Author

Listed:
  • Leo Dobes
  • Jeff Bennett

Abstract

Multi-criteria analysis (including Triple Bottom Line approaches) is fundamentally flawed in principle, and is open to abuse by special-interest groups. Its increased use poses a significant risk to the quality of policy formulation by Australian governments.

Suggested Citation

  • Leo Dobes & Jeff Bennett, 2009. "Multi-Criteria Analysis: "Good Enough" for Government Work?," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 16(3), pages 7-30.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:16:y:2009:i:3:p:7-30
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p88621/pdf/01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diakoulaki, D. & Karangelis, F., 2007. "Multi-criteria decision analysis and cost-benefit analysis of alternative scenarios for the power generation sector in Greece," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 716-727, May.
    2. Nick Hanley & Clive L. Spash, 1993. "Cost–Benefit Analysis and the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 205, December.
    3. Leo Dobes, 2007. "Turning Isolation To Advantage In Regional Cost—Benefit Analysis," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 26(1), pages 17-28, March.
    4. Ian J. Bateman & Richard T. Carson & Brett Day & Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Tannis Hett & Michael Jones-Lee & Graham Loomes, 2002. "Economic Valuation with Stated Preference Techniques," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2639, December.
    5. Henry Ergas, 2009. "Infrastructure Australia, A Report to the Council of Australian Governments," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 79-82.
    6. Bennett, Jeffrey W. & Dumsday, Robert G. & Gillespie, Robert, 2008. "Analysing options for the Red Gum Forests along the Murray River," 2008 Conference (52nd), February 5-8, 2008, Canberra, Australia 6029, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dobes Leo & Jotzo Frank & Stern David I., 2014. "The Economics of Global Climate Change: A Historical Literature Review," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 65(3), pages 281-320, December.
    2. Baker, Rick & Ruting, Brad, 2014. "Environmental Policy Analysis: A Guide to Non‑Market Valuation," 2014 Conference (58th), February 4-7, 2014, Port Macquarie, Australia 165810, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    3. Dobes, Leo, 2012. "Adaptation to Climate Change: Formulating Policy under Uncertainty," Working Papers 249390, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    4. Davis, Katrina J. & Pannell, David J. & Kragt, Marit Ellen, 2012. "Determining the cost-effectiveness of Phytophthora cinnamomi management in the Fitzgerald River National Park," 2012 Conference (56th), February 7-10, 2012, Fremantle, Australia 124288, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    5. World Bank, 2011. "Climate Change and Fiscal Policy : A Report for APEC," World Bank Publications - Reports 2734, The World Bank Group.
    6. Lin Crase, 2010. "A Cautionary Note on the Use of Socio‐Economic Analyses in Water Planning," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 29(1), pages 41-47, March.
    7. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    8. Richard J. Thomas & Emmanuelle Quillérou & Naomi Stewart, 2013. "The rewards of investing in sustainable land management," Working Papers hal-01954823, HAL.
    9. Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin & Elsa Negre & Camille Rosenthal-Sabroux, 2013. "Towards a new tacit knowledge-based approach for decision process," Post-Print hal-01347323, HAL.
    10. Ward, E. John & Dimitriou, Harry T. & Dean, Marco, 2016. "Theory and background of multi-criteria analysis: Toward a policy-led approach to mega transport infrastructure project appraisal," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 21-45.
    11. Dean, M. & Hickman, R. & Chen, C.-L., 2019. "Testing the application of participatory MCA: The case of the South Fylde Line," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 62-70.
    12. Abbie A. Rogers & Fiona L. Dempster & Jacob I. Hawkins & Robert J. Johnston & Peter C. Boxall & John Rolfe & Marit E. Kragt & Michael P. Burton & David J. Pannell, 2019. "Valuing non-market economic impacts from natural hazards," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 99(2), pages 1131-1161, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jose M. Martínez-Paz & Angel Perni & Federico Martínez-Carrasco, 2013. "Assessment of the Programme of Measures for Coastal Lagoon Environmental Restoration Using Cost--Benefit Analysis," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 131-148, February.
    2. Gurluk, Serkan, 2006. "The estimation of ecosystem services' value in the region of Misi Rural Development Project: Results from a contingent valuation survey," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 209-218, December.
    3. Spash, Clive L., 2008. "The Contingent Valuation Method: Retrospect and Prospect," MPRA Paper 101234, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Star, Megan & Rolfe, John & Brown, Julia, 2020. "From farm to fork: Is food tourism a sustainable form of economic development?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 325-334.
    5. Sabah Abdulla & P W Jeanty, 2009. "Demand for Electricity Connection in Rural Areas: The Case of Kenya," Department of Economics Working Papers 26/09, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    6. Bakti Hasan-Basri & Mohd Zaini Abd Karim & Normizan Bakar, 2015. "Willingness To Pay For Recreational Attributes Of Public Parks: A Choice Experiment Approach," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 60(05), pages 1-18, December.
    7. Ladenburg, Jacob & Skotte, Maria, 2022. "Heterogeneity in willingness to pay for the location of offshore wind power development: An application of the willingness to pay space model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    8. Aurora A. C. Teixeira & Mafalda Soeiro, 2013. "Determinants Of Students' Willingness To Pay For Violent Crime Reduction," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 58(04), pages 1-34.
    9. Sabah Abdullah & Randall S. Rosenberger, 2012. "Controlling for Biases in Primary Valuation Studies: A Meta-analysis of International Coral Reef Values," Working Papers 2012.72, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. Helen Scarborough & Jeff Bennett, 2012. "Cost–Benefit Analysis and Distributional Preferences," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14376, December.
    11. Pepermans, Guido, 2011. "The value of continuous power supply for Flemish households," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 7853-7864.
    12. Verbic, Miroslav & Slabe-Erker, Renata, 2009. "An econometric analysis of willingness-to-pay for sustainable development: A case study of the Volcji Potok landscape area," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1316-1328, March.
    13. Yamada, Katsunori & Sato, Masayuki, 2013. "Another avenue for anatomy of income comparisons: Evidence from hypothetical choice experiments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 35-57.
    14. Henrik Andersson & Mikael Svensson, 2008. "Cognitive ability and scale bias in the contingent valuation method," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 39(4), pages 481-495, April.
    15. Sung-Min Kim & Ju-Hee Kim & Seung-Hoon Yoo, 2020. "Households’ Willingness to Pay for Substituting Natural Gas with Renewable Methane: A Contingent Valuation Experiment in South Korea," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-13, June.
    16. Björn Vollan & Karla Henning & Deniza Staewa, 2017. "Do campaigns featuring impact evaluations increase donations? Evidence from a survey experiment," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 500-518, October.
    17. Choi, Andy S., 2013. "Nonmarket values of major resources in the Korean DMZ areas: A test of distance decay," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 97-107.
    18. Tanner, Michael K. & Moity, Nicolas & Costa, Matthew T. & Marin Jarrin, Jose R. & Aburto-Oropeza, Octavio & Salinas-de-León, Pelayo, 2019. "Mangroves in the Galapagos: Ecosystem services and their valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 12-24.
    19. Murphy, Geraldine & O’Donoghue, Cathal & Hynes, Stephen & Murphy, Eithne, 2014. "Modelling the Participation Decision in Agri-Environmental Schemes," 2014 International Congress, August 26-29, 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia 183069, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Carol Vargas & Ramón Rosales, 2006. "Valoración Económica De La Prevención Pública De La Malaria En Los Hogares Del Caquetá," Documentos CEDE 3749, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:16:y:2009:i:3:p:7-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.