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W5. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF WATER RESOURCES PROJECTS
(KUL-code: I997)
Lecturer: TOLLENS E.
Prerequisites: none
Contact hours: 5 sessions of 3 hours each
Time and place: 1st semester, K.U.Leuven
Course syllabus: -
Evaluation: on the basis of an exercise on economic project evaluation
Comparable handbook: J. Price GITTINGER, Economic Analysis of Agricultural
Projects, 2nd Edition, EDI Series in Economic Development, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, 1982.
Additional information: -
Learning objectives:
The objective is to familiarize students with the economic and financial concepts and methods in project
evaluation, applied to water resources projects. With the course, they will be able to do such an evaluation
themselves, except determining shadow prices of resources, which an economist must do. They will also be
able to fully understand the results (criteria) of such project evaluation.
Course description:
- General principles of project evaluation, including economic and financial analysis, shadow pricing,
discounting and undiscounted measures of project worth.
- Nature of costs and benefits in water resources projects.
- Techniques of comparing costs and benefits: benefit-cost ratio, present net worth, internal rate of return and
net benefit-investment ratio.
- Sensitivity analysis and treatment of uncertainty, including inflation.
- Farm accounts as the basis for preparing farm plans, making financial projections, and aggreation to project
level.
- Applications to water resources projects.
- Manual exercises and case studies.
21 / Course syllabi