Recent advances in policy and project evaluation: Cost–benefit analysis and beyond

Abstract Cost–benefit analysis, and more generally policy evaluation through quantitative methods, provides governments and citizens with insights for decision‐making. The Special Issue offers evidence about the relevance of ways to structure analysis with the tools of applied economics. This article is the editorial introduction of this Special Issue, arising from both a European Conference of the Society for Benefit‐Cost Analysis, organized by the University of Milan, and an open call for papers by the Annals of Cooperative and Public Economics. The selected papers deal with three main topics: advances in the design of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) for policy and project evaluation; applied welfare economics and the welfare state; and territorial and environmental dimension of welfare analysis. Overall, the Special Issue offers an interesting contribution to the literature on two dimensions: on the one side, roadmaps to embedding CBA in government and policymaking, and on the other, new methodological approaches that allow rigorous empirical analysis.