THE COST-BENEFIT GROUP LLC
We Quantify What Others Omit
We Specialize in Comprehensively Estimating Costs, Benefits, Values and Impacts of Projects, Properties and Policies.
We are known for estimating the economic and financial impacts of environmental hazards and real estate projects and provide numerous related services.
To find out more about our services, previous work, approaches, people and more click the links to the left email us at info@costbenefitgroup.com or call us at 646-705-0664.
Thanks for dropping by.
Updates Coming
May 10, 2023
It's been some time since we updated this site but we will be doing so this month.
Among the highlights will be our work
with Plaintiff attorneys in estimating property diminution for a $65 million class action settlement in Millsboro Delaware https://tinyurl.com/2lvfhzkk and subsequently with a judge on apportioning damages
with Plaintiff -attorneys in estimating property diminution around a dairy plant in Wisconsin.
estimating of property value diminution near a hazardous waste site in Niagara County, NY for Residents for Responsible Government.
Valuations of mixed use buildings in Manhattan, Queens and Nassau and Suffolk Counties, NY; industrial buildings in the Bronx and Suffolk Counties and other properties
Unfortunately, some of our other work must remain confidential, but we will be providing additional information on these and other activities
In addition, Kenneth Acks has been an adjunct professor at the NYU Schack Institute for Real Estate, where he has taught Valuation and Feasibility Analysis for more than 4 years.
We also are happy to report our further emergence from the Covid pandemic with a new address at 1178 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York 10001.
Ken Acks Presents "A Web-Based Land Use Benefit Cost Optimization Tool" at 2018 Annual Conference of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis in Washington DC
Kenneth Acks to Present "Economic Rents and Cost-Benefit Analysis - Issues Metrics and Application to Health and Energy Policy" at 2017 Annual Conference of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis in Washington DC
Liberals and conservatives agree that the use of government power by special interests often produces suboptimal outcomes, market distortions, unfairness and inequality. Much of the influence results in the generation of economic rents. Economic rent is any payment to a factor of production in excess of the cost needed to bring that factor into production. In classical economics, economic rent is any payment made or benefit received for non-produced inputs such as location (land) and for assets formed by creating official privilege over natural opportunities (e.g., patents). In neoclassical economics rent also includes income gained by beneficiaries of other contrived exclusivity, such as corruption. Liberals often attribute rents to natural market dynamics whereas conservatives point to government policies.
Rents have been of interest to economists from Adam Smith, who noted that “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Anne Kruger coined the term in 1974. Mancur Olsen (in The Logic of Collective Action), Gordon Tullock and other politico-economists revived and modernized the discussion. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz recently emphasized the importance of rents. In “A Firm-Level Perspective on the Role of Rents in the Rise in Inequality” (2015) Jason Furman Chair of the CEA and Peter Orzag use firm-level data to argue that there has been a trend of increased dispersion of returns to capital across firms, with an increasingly large fraction of firms getting returns over 10-30% annually ...
This paper will discuss how the generation of rents can affect Benefit-Cost Analysis in general, and with respect to the energy, health care and finance industries. The "Theory of the Second Best" will also be applied and discussed.
Summaries of Some 2016 Projects
January 4, 2017
The Cost-Benefit Group obtained and completed a variety of complex and challenging assignments in 2016. We cannot disclose some of our work at this time and have eliminated details of other projects due to confidentiality agreements. We may be able to provide additional details upon request. The work for these projects included valuations, feasibility studies, forecasts and/or analyses of real estate markets, local economies, neighborhoods, zoning, taxes, and real estate sales and rental activity.
- Impacts of maufactured gas site in Westchester, NY
- Asphalt Plant - Suffolk County, NY
- Homes near industrial site in Alabama
- Vacant Land - New Hyde Park and West Hemsptead, NY
- Impacts of hazardous waste site in Niagara County, New York
- Office buildings in Albertson, Cedarhurst, East Setauket, Hempstead, Hicksville, Huntington, North Babylon and Ronkonkoma, NY
- Retail buildings in Cedarhurst, Elmont, Riverhead, Roslyn, Southold, and Westbury, NY
- Mixed use retail/apartment buildings in Huntington, Inwood and Valley Stream, NY
- Sports Complex - Indoor Soccer/basketball - Smithtown, NY
- Apartment Complex - Valley Stream, NY
- Industrial Building - New Hyde Park, NY
- Rental analysis for mixed use project with affortable housing in Rockaway Park, NY