Cost‐Benefit Analysis and the Location of Government Training Centres

In recent years Adrian Ziderman has applied the tools of cost‐benefit analysis to the evaluation of government training and his latest paper analyses the regional location of Government Training Centres (GTCs). Although he is kind enough to suggest that his paper was stimulated by an earlier paper of my own, he has nevertheless been severe in his criticism of me. He claims that I eschew the cost‐benefit approach because I find it wanting. Furthermore, he argues that the alternative criteria that I suggest for evaluating the regional location of GTC capacity are seriously deficient and give rise to policy recommendations which must be “treated with caution”. Here I attempt to meet Ziderman's criticisms of my earlier paper and in passing I comment very briefly upon the paper by Nicholas Adnett which is also critical of the main policy implications of my analysis.