Cost-benefit analysis is a type of economic analysis that requires the quantification of the costs and benefits of any action and that may be used to choose among various actions, depending on which is projected to yield the greatest benefits in relation to costs. It is often used in fields such as healthcare and environmental studies because it provides a means to assign numeric value (which may be expressed in monetary terms such as dollars or in other units) to entities that are not ordinarily thought of in those terms (e.g., the value of preserving one human life or of maintaining a wilderness area in unspoiled condition). There are many controversies involved with cost-benefit analysis, and different analysts may come up with different results for ...