Many businesses rely on Disaster Recovery (DR) services to prevent either manmade or natural disasters from causing expensive service disruptions. Unfortunately, current DR services come either at very high cost, or with only weak guarantees about the amount of data lost or time required to restart operation after a failure. In this work, we argue that cloud computing platforms are well suited ...

The conceptual model necessary for an assessment of biotechnology's economic benefits and costs is outlined, emphasizing the need to account for the proprietary nature of biotechnology innovations. The model is illustrated with an application to Roundup Ready soybeans. The estimated value of this innovation is sizeable, with consumers and innovators claiming the larger share of net benefits. Al...

In the presence of price distortions, cost-benefit analysis must include changes in the deadweight loss in addition to the direct benefits and costs to transportation users and nonusers. Advances in new economic geography (NEG) have highlighted the importance of price distortions associated with imperfect competition. This paper reviews recent contributions to cost-benefit analysis in NEG model...

BACKGROUND Physical inactivity has major impacts on health and productivity. Our aim was to estimate the health and economic benefits of reducing the prevalence of physical inactivity in the 2008 Australian adult population. The economic benefits were estimated as 'opportunity cost savings', which represent resources utilized in the treatment of preventable disease that are potentially availabl...

Economic efficiency implies an equating, at the margin, of benefits and costs. In this paper we explore a concept of "efficiency" which is broader than the usual framework and which applies to commodities and services produced and distributed largely outside the private, profit maximizing sector. An assessment of the economic efficiency of producing such a commodity requires the determination o...