The many wasteful policies and procedures in federal water resources programs have been much analyzed by economists and other scholars. Agency benefit-cost practices have been found wanting. Benefit estimates have been biased upward and cost estimates downward. Environmental effects of projects, often adverse, are not weighted enough. I generally endorse the thrust of these criticisms and will not repeat them here. Rather, I will discuss a few equally significant questions which have been neglected.
In Robert Haveman and Robert Hamrin (eds.), The Political Economy of Federal Policy. New York etc., Harper and Row, Publishers, 1973
