National Waterways Foundation Inland Waterways Economic Impact Study

The proposed analysis will measure the economic benefits attributable to commercial inland navigation comprehensively, accurately, and defensibly through methods that are completely consistent with the most highly regarded economic principles and in a way that makes the analytical results as useful as possible within regional, national, and global transportation policy discussions. Toward this end, these methods focus on the national economic efficiency gains attributable to barge transportation. Related economic transfers between regions of the US will be fully accounted for, so that only net efficiency changes will be reported as benefits. The proposed methods are fully consistent with the Principles and Guidelines used by the US Army Corps of Engineers in project evaluation and, otherwise, comply with discipline standards prescribed for defensible benefit-cost analysis.