ABSTRACT
The mainstream economist’s approach to environmental decision making is based on cost-benefit analysis. It involves attempting to calculate what a set of environmental goods is worth to people in monetary terms; crudely, finding out what people would pay to preserve a feature of the environment as it is. The figure derived is compared with the monetary value of economic exploitation. Whichever alternative of preservation or exploitation that raises the greatest sum is held to have won the cost-benefit analysis.
