Book Review: Local Economic Development in the 21st Century: Quality of Life and Sustainability

provides an overview of the fundamentals of microeconomics, it is not comprehensive enough to make up for a lack of prior subject knowledge of microeconomics and basic calculus. The application of these concepts in numerical examples of risk could be explained in more detail and supported by graphical illustrations as Layard and Glaister (1994) provide in Cost–benefit Analysis. In addition, for the benefit of beginners, it might have been helpful if Gines had provided an overview of some key statistical concepts, such as probability distribution, probability and cumulative density functions, and normal distribution, that are crucial to the understanding of risk. Also, from a practitioners’ point of view, it also may have been useful if Gines had included a short description of the software used to perform the risk analysis. Despite its limitations, for readers with a background in microeconomics and some knowledge of statistics, this book can be an excellent resource to familiarize themselves with the techniques of cost–benefit analysis.