On Intergenerational Equity and Its Clash with Intragenerational Equity and on the Need for Policies to Guide the Regulation of Disposal of Wastes and Other Activities Posing Very Long-Term Risks

This article begins with some history of the derivation of 40 CFR Part 191, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard that governs the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level and transuranic radioactive wastes. This is followed by criticisms of the standard that were made by a Sub-Committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board, by the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and by a panel of the National Academies of Science and Engineering. The large disparity in the EPA approaches to regulation of disposal of radioactive wastes and disposal of hazardous, long-lived, nonradioactive chemical waste is illustrated. An examination of the intertwined matters of intergenerational equity and the discounting of future health effects follows, together with a discussion of the conflict between intergenerational equity and intragenerational equity. Finally, issues related to assumptions in the regulations concerning the future state of society and the biosphere are treated, as is the absence of any national philosophy or guiding policy for how to deal with societal activities that pose very long-term risks.     

Low Probability Accidents

Experts frequently differ on their estimates of risk associated with accidents that have a low probability of occurrence. Those who stand to benefit from siting a new facility often perceive it as acceptably safe, using expert opinion to defend their argument. Potential losers find data to suggest that the new technology is too hazardous. This paper contrasts the role of risk assessments of low probability events in siting Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. In both cases the decision process was a rather lengthy one due to conflicts between interested stakeholders. The paper discusses the potential of compensation and insurance as policy tools for facilitating negotiation. Four criteria for improving the siting process in any country are also outlined.     

Negotiated Compensation for Solid-Waste Disposal Facility Siting: An Analysis of the Wisconsin Experience

Since enacting a unique facility siting law in 1981, Wisconsin has had unusual success in siting solid-waste management facilities. The law mandates a state-level technical review and licensing process and a local-level negotiation/arbitration process that deals with host community impacts and concerns. Data from the negotiated compensation agreements, a survey of facility proposers, and secondary data for the host communities are analyzed in relation to compensation levels. Concerns with community image and health risks and with facility management and equity issues are found to significantly and substantially increase negotiated compensation levels. In contrast, a focus on logistics and transportation concerns is associated with lower levels of compensation. Compensation increases with facility capacity but at a less than proportional rate. Higher levels of compensation are obtained by communities that accept compensation "in kind" in the form of free or reduced fees for host community waste disposal.     

Intergenerational Risk Decision Making: A Practical Example

There is no such thing as intergenerational decision making, at least not yet. In fact, there is no such thing as intragenerational decision making in the context of maximizing overall social good given resource limitations, there are just decisions being made in an ad hoc fashion. Even if one assumes that there is such a thing as intragenerational decision making, no uniform standard or guidance exists to make societal decisions for the common good. Risks to society are judged unevenly within the same agency and across agencies. Decisions are made in isolation and not weighed in the societal context of what is intra or intergenerationally important. The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has set forth a framework for intergenerational decision making that provides a consistent and fair basis for making tough decisions in order to address difficult issues such as the long-term disposal of nuclear wastes. NAPA recognizes that there is an intergenerational obligation that must encompass broader questions than the narrow issue of waste disposal since resources are finite and needs are great. The fundamental principles are based on sustainability with the overarching objective that "no generation should needlessly, now or in the future, deprive its successors of the opportunity to enjoy a quality of life equivalent to its own." Coupled with this objective are four supporting principles of trusteeship, sustainability, chain of obligation, and precaution. The NAPA process also recognizes that no decision can be final and that a "rolling future" view is better than making decisions for "all time." It attempts to balance the needs of the present with those of the future in an open and transparent process that is aimed at producing a decision, not just endless analysis. The U.S. Congress and president should develop a rational standard by which to judge laws that involve intra and intergenerational issues relative to the overall societal good. Present regulations need to be evaluated relative to a uniform level of risk and benefit to assess where the limited money available can do the most good for both the present and future generations in the context of NAPA sustainability principles. It is hoped that decision makers will take a serious look at this process since it can work to resolve stakeholder stalemate.     

Siting Noxious Facilities: A Test of the Facility Siting Credo

Over the past decade it has become increasingly difficult to site noxious facilities, despite the fact that there is a growing need to do so. To address this problem, a set of guidelines for a fairer, wiser, and more workable siting process—the Facility Siting Credo—was developed during a National Facility Siting Workshop in 1990. This paper presents an empirical test of these guidelines. A questionnaire based on the Credo was completed by stakeholders in 29 waste facility siting cases, both successful and unsuccessful, across the United States and Canada. Using an independent determination of outcome (success), a preliminary ranking of the importance of various Credo principles was obtained. The data reveal that establishing trust between the developer and host community is an important factor in facilitating the siting process. The siting process is most likely to be successful when the community perceives the facility design to be appropriate and to satisfy its needs. Public participation also is seen to be an important process variable, particularly if it encourages a view that the facility best meets community needs. Moreover, a siting process where communities volunteer to host facilities is an approach that holds promise for meeting many of these key success criteria.     

The Decline of Deference: The Political Context of Risk Communication

Risk communication is seen as an important adjunct to the process of siting locally noxious facilities. To understand how risk communication might function in such a process, one needs to understand the political context that gives rise to public opposition to such facilities in the first place. This analysis draws on a variety of data to describe the decline of deference, a situation in which a hostile and alienated public is mobilized primarily through ad hoc voluntary organizations, and is increasingly reluctant to defer important decisions to institutional elites. Risk communication programs must be designed to offset the trends that result in the decline of deference. This conclusion differs markedly from the conventional wisdom that risk communication is merely a device for providing information to citizens so sthat they may make more rational decisions.     

Cost-benefit analysis—a critique

This paper surveys some of the main criticisms of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) that have emerged over the years. It is noted in passing that views on what type of technique CBA really is, or should be, have differed and continue to differ depending on the set of value judgements used. We emphasise that the more recent suggested extensions to or modifications of CBA have sought to make the technique more comprehensive (i.e. to include distributional, environmental quality and other objectives as well as economic efficiency) at the inevitable cost of a loss of precision. The underlying principles of CBA are examined and the problems of multiple objective planning highlighted. Valuation problems are analysed, in particular with regard to amenity and environmental effects. Finally, the issues of uncertainty, irreversibility and intergenerational equity are raised briefly to indicate the complexity of the decision-making task when large-scale technologically advanced projects have to be appraised. In conclusion it is argued that CBA presented in a disaggregated format, as a comprehensive method for the ordering of information and a testing procedure for a range of valuations can perform a useful role in the decision-making process. The term ‘policy analysis’ is probably a better one for this broader view of the use of CBA. Ultimately we seem to be searching for a synthesis of the participatory and the traditional (technocratic) style of decision-making though we have a long and difficult course to chart before we even approach such a goal.     

代际公平与社会偏好视角下优势金属矿产定价权分析——基于古诺均衡模型的分析框架

我国优势金属矿产定价权的缺失对我国经济增长及经济安全产生了重要影响,这让很多学者构建相应的模型来解释定价权缺失。基于此背景,本文把代际公平均衡、社会偏好均衡与古诺模型相结合,解决代际价值补偿与策略性价值补偿计量的技术难题;并通过计量分析优势金属矿产市场的需求状况和开发税费科目,获得开发补偿的相关数据,展开理论模型结论的算例验证分析。理论模型与数值模拟结论表明,代际公平均衡与社会偏好均衡由于代际价值与策略性价值的产生,提升了我国金属矿产国际贸易市场势力,但社会偏好对市场势力影响路径并非一致,利他古诺均衡、互动公平古诺均衡变动具有一致的结果,非公平厌恶的古诺均衡具有损失厌恶特征,即在考虑非公平厌恶的古诺竞争时,古诺纳什均衡随非公平厌恶的同情和嫉妒偏好单调变换。这些结论与构建的理论模型实现了可持续发展理念与价值评价思维的有效结合,拓展了矿产资源定价权缺失的理论分析框架,为相关商品贸易的定价权解释提供了新的思路。     

Managing Nuclear Waste from Power Plants

National strategies to manage nuclear waste from commercial nuclear power plants are analyzed and compared. The current strategy is to try to operate a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, to dispose of high-level nuclear waste underground. The main alternatives involve temporary above-ground storage at a centralized facility or next to nuclear power plants. If either of these is pursued now, the analysis assumes that a repository will be built in 2100 for waste not subsequently put to use. The analysis treats various uncertainties: whether a repository at Yucca Mountain would be licensed, possible theft and misuse of the waste, innovations in repository design and waste management, the potential availability of a cancer cure by 2100, and possible future uses of nuclear waste. The objectives used to compare alternatives include concerns for health and safety, environmental and socioeconomic impacts, and direct economic costs, as well as equity concerns (geographical, intergenerational, and procedural), indirect economic costs to electricity ratepayers, federal government responsibility to manage nuclear waste, and implications of theft and misuse of nuclear waste. The analysis shows that currently building an underground repository at Yucca Mountain is inferior to other available strategies by the equivalent of $10,000 million to $50,000 million. This strongly suggests that this policy should be reconsidered. A more detailed analysis using the framework presented would help to define a new national policy to manage nuclear waste.     

Potential Negative Impacts of Nuclear Activities on Local Economies: Rethinking the Issue

Surveys of public opinion about perceptions of risk associated with the nuclear fuel cycle have shown that the public professes a widespread feeling of dread, a fear of associated stigmas, and a concern about possible catastrophic nuclear accidents. Various interest groups and state governments that oppose congressionally mandated siting of centralized high-level radioactive waste (HLW) storage and disposal facilities are using this negative imagery to create a powerful, emotional obstacle to the siting process. From statistical analyses of images and location preferences, researchers have claimed that possible significant economic losses could potentially accompany the siting of HLW facilities. However, several paradoxes, or self-contradictory statements, apparently exist between the responses expressed in surveys and the actual economic and demographic behavior evidenced in the marketplace. Federal policymakers need to evaluate whether the request for a change in siting policy is based on subjective fear of a potential negative economic effect or on proven negative effects. Empirically observed behavior does not support predicted negative economic effects based on survey responses.     

Neighbors in Time: Development and Use of Some Values for Intergenerational Justice from the Jewish and Christian Religious Traditions

The overlapping understandings of Jewish and Christian traditions (the Traditions), both influencing and reincorporating Western culture from the Greeks to the present, underpin many of the ethical constructs of present society, in ways both obvious and subtle. The concept of justice is central to the ethical outlooks of both religious traditions. This article systematically develops values related to justice from within the Traditions and extends them to the question of intergenerational equity as proposed precepts for assessment and action. Many of the results seem familiar because they are deeply embedded in our culture. They are assertions that transcend time-the value of human life; an obligation to support the necessary interests of others, especially the powerless; the concepts of brotherhood, the common good, and stewardship of resources; and the transmission of knowledge, resources, and values through the vehicles of families and communities. Other ideas from within the Traditions, such as giving beyond the requirements of equity and the connection of human life with God whose abilities are unbounded by time, continue to draw people beyond the limits of culture. These outlooks are organized into 17 statements or proposals constitutive of this view of justice. These summary statements are used as the basis for comparing a system of principles proposed by a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration for intergenerational decision making with the views represented by the Traditions. This broaches a broader question of fairness in resource distribution. The article concludes with reference to some developed resources of the Traditions from which further insight can be drawn, and another illustration related to resource allocation. It is hoped that the article helps stimulate wider analysis of the values on which our decisions are made.     

Rotten Parents and Disciplined Children: A Politico‐Economic Theory of Public Expenditure and Debt

This paper proposes a dynamic politico‐economic theory of fiscal policy in a world comprising a set of small open economies, whose driving force is the intergenerational conflict over debt, taxes, and public goods. Subsequent generations of voters choose fiscal policy through repeated elections. The presence of young voters induces fiscal discipline, that is, low taxes and low debt accumulation. The paper characterizes the Markov‐perfect equilibrium of the voting game in each economy, as well as the stationary equilibrium debt distribution and interest rate of the world economy. The equilibrium can reproduce some salient features of fiscal policy in modern economies.     

Pension Reform and Economic Policy Constraints in Italy

The reforms of the Italian pension system approved by Parliament at the end of 1992 and in the summer of 1995 have been strongly conditioned by two goals of general economic policy: the re-equilibrium of the government budget and a new approach in the relationship between state and market. In this paper the author examines the main aspects of those reforms, analysing the consequences on the pension system of pursuing the general aims of economic policy. In particular, after having noticed the positive modifications, three criticisms are pointed out. (1) The extension of the private and funded component of old-age insurance, apart from its negative effect on the efficiency of the entire pension system, implies subsidizing above-average incomes at the expense of the lower ones. (2) The abolition of the link between real wages and pensions decided by the reforms implies a cut in the intergenerational contract which is dangerous from both an economic and a social point of view. (3) The political context has influenced some relevant technical aspects of the new pension system, causing some inconsistencies on operational grounds.     

Why we cannot agree on the direction of health reform: an exploration of American values

Most of the articles in this series examine historical forces that have shaped American health care policy. This article will ask the reader to step back from the swirl of events that have led to a health care system that provides excellent care to many and minimal services to a substantial minority. The purpose of this article is to place often contradictory health policies within their philosophical context. Such an analysis can lead to an understanding of the reasons for the simultaneous appearance of both competitive and regulatory features in the American health care system.     

Intergenerational Issues Regarding Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste, and Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear power, nuclear waste, and nuclear weapons raise substantial public concern in many countries. While new support for nuclear power can be found in arguments concerning greenhouse gases and global warming, the long-term existence of radioactive waste has led to requirements for 10,000-year isolation. Some of the support for such requirements is based on intergenerational equity arguments. This, however, places a very high value on lives far in the future. An alternative is to use discounting, as is applied to other resource applications. Nuclear weapons, even though being dismantled by the major nations, are growing in number due to the increase in the number of countries possessing these weapons of mass destruction. This is an unfortunate legacy for future generations.     

Corporate governance effectiveness along the entrepreneurial process of a family firm: the role of private equity

This paper was motivated by the increasing interest in the corporate governance debate on how effective structure and processes may influence entrepreneurial transitions. Along the entrepreneurial process, little research to date has investigated the exit in the context of entrepreneurial family firms. Previous literature has considered the exit mainly as a failure for entrepreneurial families, but when uncertainties arise this choice may enable ownership transitions, thus facilitating survival and long term strategies. Among the exit options, a private equity buyout may balance the family’s wealth protection and the firm’s future growth. However, which family specific characteristics and strategic needs may affect the exit option still remains a neglected topic. Drawing on corporate governance literature and recent research addressing entrepreneurship in family firms, this paper investigates, by a single case study, the bridging role of private equity buyout for going through entrepreneurial transitions. Findings suggest that a private equity buyout is a governance mechanism that may sustain an entrepreneurial transition by realigning family interests and goals. It may also allow the family commitment for improving organizational capabilities required by an entrepreneurial transition.     

Local Acceptance of a High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository

The siting of nuclear waste facilities has been very difficult in all countries. Recent experience in Sweden indicates, however, that it may be possible, under certain circumstances, to gain local support for the siting of a high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) repository. The article reports on a study of attitudes and risk perceptions of people living in four municipalities in Sweden where HLNW siting was being intensely discussed at the political level, in media, and among the public. Data showed a relatively high level of consensus on acceptability of at least further investigation of the issue; in two cases local councils have since voted in favor of a go-ahead, and in one case only a very small majority defeated the issue. Models of policy attitudes showed that these were related to attitude to nuclear power, attributes of the perceived HLNW risk, and trust. Factors responsible for acceptance are discussed at several levels. One is the attitude to nuclear power, which is becoming more positive, probably because no viable alternatives are in sight. Other factors have to do with the extensive information programs conducted in these municipalities, and with the logical nature of the conclusion that they would be good candidates for hosting the national HLNW repository.     

Intergenerational Considerations Affecting the Future of Nuclear Power: Equity as a Framework for Assessing Fuel Cycles

Alternative fuel cycles are being considered in an effort to prolong uranium fuel supplies for thousands of years to come and to manage nuclear waste. These strategies bring with them different benefits and burdens for the present generation and for future generations. In this article, we present a method that provides insight into future fuel cycle alternatives and into the conflicts arising between generations within the framework of intergenerational equity. A set of intersubjective values is drawn from the notion of sustainable development. By operationalizing these values and mapping out their impacts, value criteria are introduced for the assessment of fuel cycles, which are based on the distribution of burdens and benefits between generations. The once‐through fuel cycle currently deployed in the United States and three future fuel cycles are subsequently assessed according to these criteria. The four alternatives are then compared in an integrated analysis in which we shed light on the implicit tradeoffs made by decisionmakers when they choose a certain fuel cycle. When choosing a fuel cycle, what are the societal costs and burdens accepted for each generation and how can these factors be justified? This article presents an integrated decision‐making method, which considers intergenerational aspects of such decisions; this method could also be applied to other technologies.     

Maximizing customer equity subject to capacity constraints

This paper considers a firm that wants to optimally allocate limited capacity to heterogeneous customer segments in order to maximize its customer equity. The decision whether to accept or to reject a customer׳s request in a current period influences his repurchase behavior in later periods. The allocation process becomes complex, when demand exceeds capacity, because the isolated determination and optimization of a single customer׳s lifetime value is no longer feasible. Using a Markov decision process formulation, we study how to trade off short-term attainable revenues and long-term customer relationships. Furthermore, we analyze when and how intertemporal customer behavior influences capacity allocation. Finally, we investigate the impact of limited capacity on the customer lifetime value by introducing an opportunity cost-based approach that understands customer profitability as a customer׳s contribution to customer equity.