Priceless: On Knowing The Price Of Everything And The Value Of Nothing

As clinical as it sounds to express the value of human lives, health, or the environment in cold dollars and cents, cost—benefit analysis requires it. More disturbingly, this approach is being embraced by a growing number of politicians and conservative pundits as the most reasonable way to make many policy decisions regarding public health and the environment.

By systematically refuting the economic algorithms and illogical assumptions that cost—benefit analysts flaunt as fact, Priceless t...