cost-benefit analysis
11
3.9
- noun
- /ˈkɔstˈbɛnɪfɪt əˈnælɪsɪs/
- Specialized
:
análisis costo-beneficio
- No progress can be made on these problems without a careful cost-benefit analysis of alternatives.
- conduct a cost-benefit analysis
- perform cost-benefit analysis
- require cost-benefit analysis
You do do a cost benefit analysis on every action that you take.
- You do do a cost benefit analysis on every action that you take.
- People are overly biased against trying to do like a, a quantified cost benefit analysis on really tough life decisions.
- Any new regulations that are brought in should first undergo a cost benefit analysis.
- So there is a question which I don't think we have time to do the cost benefit analysis now, but celebrities could well bring more buyers to the market.
Examples
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But we should do more cost benefit analysis before regulations go into effect.
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Well, Evelyn did a cost-benefit analysis... comparing all your last five years of crime fighting before going underground.
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So how can cost benefit analysis take these into account?
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You do do a cost benefit analysis on every action that you take.
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That meant that it was able to conduct some form of cost-benefit analysis.
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The environmental consequences were similarly ignored in the cost-benefit analysis, though they were expensive in reality.
Academic text (1992) -
The relevant question for a quantitative risk assessment involving cost-benefit analysis is quite different, however.
Academic text (1996) -
In fact, the record of cost-benefit analysis, at least within the EPA, is generally encouraging.
Academic text (2001) -
We acknowledge that we have not presented a detailed cost-benefit analysis for the two contrasted approaches to ecosystem science.
Academic text (2012) -
Before making any major investment, it is essential to conduct a cost-benefit analysis to ensure the benefits will exceed the expenses.
Surface Forms
Morphology
cost-benefit + analysis
The noun 'analysis' means a systematic examination and the compound 'cost-benefit' directly names the two things being compared (costs and benefits), so the overall meaning 'an examination comparing costs and benefits' is transparently derivable from its parts. This construction is also cross-linguistically common (e.g. análisis coste-beneficio, analyse coûts-avantages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily understand it.
Etymology
The term cost-benefit analysis comes from a simple picture: putting costs on one side and benefits on the other, like a balance scale. So, it means checking whether the 'benefits' are bigger than the 'costs' before you decide.