Project Evaluation for EDA [by] G.S. Fishman and D.A. Fitchett.

An evaluation model is developed to assist the Economic Development Administration in allocating resources among requests for financial assistance from regions in the United States where high rates of unemployment chronically exist. The major criteria for accepting or rejecting a proposed project are these increase in flow of family income in the area because of the project, the ratio of this income increase to the cost of the project, and the project's impact on unemployment. Time streams of costs and benefits must be properly discounted. Once the poroposals have been evaluated, three preference orderings can be made: the first, according to the expected increase in family income at respective levels of current family income; second, the benefit/cost ratio; and third, the number of jobs created and the respective current unemployment rates of the applicants. Additional factors meriting consideration are project interactions, community involvement and resource fungibility, and the experimentation value of some projects.