Cost-effectiveness analysis of education and health interventions in developing countries

High-quality impact evaluations, including randomised experiments, are increasingly popular, but cannot always inform resource allocation decisions unless the costs of interventions are considered alongside their effects. Cost-effectiveness analysis is a straightforward but under-utilised tool for determining which of two or more interventions provides a (non-pecuniary) unit of effect at least cost. This paper reviews the framework and methods of cost-effectiveness analysis, emphasising education and health interventions, and discusses how the methods are currently applied in the literature.