In Shark Bay, Australia, only a subset of the bottlenose dolphin population uses marine sponges as tools, providing an opportunity to assess both proximate and ultimate costs and benefits and document patterns of transmission.
Moreover, the more choices there are, the lower the ultimate cost and the greater the service benefits to the consumer.
"Obviously the benefits to the state, or its taxpayers, are not immediate," said Jeremy Gold, a New York actuary and economist who has contended that governments often understate the ultimate costs of pension benefits.
The British are thinking ahead more than most, but neither the ultimate costs nor the benefits of the 2012 games will be known with much precision for several years.
Otherwise, the ultimate cost of a deal could be greater than the benefit of the new business.
The ultimate cost will be about $100 million.
The ultimate cost of the disaster remains uncertain.
Relative to the ultimate cost, he was right.
Uncertainty over the ultimate cost of the spill lingers.
What was the ultimate cost of the destruction?
The ultimate cost of the contract remains unknown.
