With budgets squeezed at every level of government, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) holds outstanding potential for assessing the efficiency of many programs. In this first book to address the application of CBA to social policy, experts examine ten of the most important policy domains: early childhood development, elementary and secondary schools, health care for the disadvantaged, mental illness, substance abuse and addiction, juvenile crime, prisoner reentry programs, housing assistance, work-incentive programs for the unemployed and employers, and welfare-to-work interventions. Each contributor discusses the applicability of CBA to actual programs, describing both proven and promising examples.

The editors provide an introduction to cost-benefit analysis, assess the programs described, and propose a research agenda for promoting its more widespread application in social policy. "Investing in the Disadvantaged" considers how to face America's most urgent social needs with shrinking resources, showing how CBA can be used to inform policy choices that produce social value.

"There's magic in the air when the warm breezes blow..."

In "Tupelo Honey" by Ann Gregory, Raul and Desdemona aren't young, and don't have stars in their eyes. They've loved and lost. Maybe hot tea and warm milk sweetened with tupelo honey can reawaken their hearts.

Will riding the Ferris wheel be worse than admitting her fear? Violet must decide when the love of her life invites her along in "The Ferris Wheel" by Stacy McKitrick.

Hunger was no game to exhausted off duty marshal Hennesey James. All he wanted was to sink his teeth into something hot, juicy and fried. Instead he got a heaping platter of attitude from a waitress with a piece de resistance all her own in "Swizzle Stick" by Sandy Pennington.

In "The Wish" by Stacy McKitrick, all of Paige's fortieth birthday wishes include office hunk Mike. But will she be adventurous enough to see if any of them can come true?

In "Titanic Love" by Linda Chalk, Stefan's seemingly endless wait to be reunited with his family is prolonged when news of "Titanic's" sinking reaches America. Is it love or madness that keeps him waiting at the pier?

Carmen is fed up with Harry, and decides to kill him, in front of witnesses. And she gets away with it Find out how in "The Death of Harry" by Ann Gregory.

A disgruntled cop battles his urge for the cigarettes he quit, and his attraction for the hot new partner he doesn't want, while he investigates a school ice cream theft. Then he finds there's more to the crime than he thought-and more to his partner, too, in "Sam, Kate, and the Lunch Lady's Secret" by Dakota James.

In "Time's Tempest: The Storm" by Jennette Marie Powell, a headstrong handyman takes his first trip back in time in search of his own past. Instead, he winds up in the storm of the century, on the run from a madman from the future, with a woman he doesn't remember meeting-or falling in love with.