Framing effects in the evaluation of multiple risk reduction

We studied how evaluation of changes in low-probability risks are affected by reference points and framing effects. Subjects considered hypothetical situations with one or two low-probability risks. Different frames were used to describe changes in risk levels. In the first experiment, subjects chose between risk-reduction options that achieved the same overall risk reduction: large reduction of one risk vs. equal (smaller) reduction of two risks. When the risks were described as losses relative to the no-risk ideal, more subjects were indifferent between the options than when the same options were described as gains relative to the status quo. In the latter case subjects preferred equal reduction of both risks, unless one risk could be reduced to zero. In a related experiment, subjects were less willing to pay any price for a commodity that carried small increases in two risks than for a commodity carrying a comparable large increase in one risk. In other experiments, subjects evaluated single changes in risks rather than comparing or evaluating pairs of changes. Subjects again placed particularly high value on reducing any risks to zero, and they were even more inclined to do so when some other risk would also be reduced to zero. In a final experiment, elimination of risk was found to be less highly valued if its source was not fully eliminated, and a status-quo effect was found. The findings are interpreted in terms of reference theories of choice.     

Paying for Old Age: Can People on Lower Incomes Afford Domiciliary Care Costs?

The Labour government has made it clear that it will not countenance major changes in the financing of long–term care for older people in England and Wales. One consequence is that people on modest retirement incomes will continue to have to pay for elements of their care in their own homes. The government also implicitly assumes that people of working age, on average and below–average earnings, are expected to save in order to pay for long–term care. However, evidence about individuals' willingness and ability to save and to pay for long–term care is scanty. Accordingly, an interview survey of 100 people—today's and tomorrow's pensioners—was undertaken in June and July 2000. They were asked detailed questions about their financial circumstances, and about their ability to pay more towards their own health and social care costs, now and in the future. The results suggest that today's pensioners on average and lower incomes are experiencing difficulties in paying for care services in their own homes. Tomorrow's pensioners who are currently on average and lower incomes will struggle to pay for care services in their own homes. The results also support the view that people tend to overestimate their retirement incomes and do not understand how long–term care is financed. They think that the government can and should pay for long–term care.     

The Value of Safety as Revealed in the Swedish Car Market: An Application of the Hedonic Pricing Approach

In this article the hedonic regression technique is used to estimate the value of traffic safety, using information from the Swedish market for automobiles. The results from the study show that the market price of an automobile is negatively correlated with its inherent risk level, i.e. Swedish car consumers pay a safety premium for safer cars. In comparison to previous Swedish stated-preference studies, this study reveals a lower willingness to pay for additional car safety, which might be a result of the interaction between government interventions and individual self-insurance and self-protection.JEL Classification: C51, D61, J28     

Anglo and Latino Differences in Willingness to Pay for Urban Public Services*

Objective. This research explores Anglo and Latino differences in willingness to pay for urban public services, assuming differences will impact service delivery in local government as the Latino population increases and becomes more visible. Methods. Survey data from a probability sample of Phoenix residents, now the nation's fifth largest city, are analyzed across 28 city services using multiple mechanisms that included a logit multivariate model. Results. Latinos are substantially more likely than Anglos to report willingness to pay for urban public services. These differences cut across services and are not mitigated by Latino income levels. Conclusions. Latinos are prepared to be full partners in improving service delivery in local government, even at the expense of out‐of‐pocket payment for services. Moreover, while increases in the Latino population will carry greater demand for more and high‐quality city services by Latinos, it is unlikely to alter the menu of preferred services along class or race/ethnic lines. The fact that Latinos seem generally more willing to pay for services also raises the possibility that Latinos are interested in investing in their communities, seeking more opportunities, and perhaps remaining in those communities.     

The value of private safety versus the value of public safety

In this study, one group of respondents is offered to purchase a safety device to be installed in their cars, while another group is offered a public safety program (improved road quality) which results in the same size risk reduction. In terms of the value of a statistical life, our results are very reasonable. However, the WTP for the private safety device ishigher than the WTP for the public safety measure. Drawing on a model developed by Jones-Lee (1991), we show that some types of altruists may, but need not, be willing to pay more for a private risk reduction than for a uniform risk reduction of the same magnitude. Still, our empirical results are surprising, and further empirical research seems warranted.     

Lack of Confidence in the Federal Government and the Ownership of Firearms

Objective . Scholars have debated the importance of declining confidence in social institutions to the American political system. The objective of this research was to offer and test the hypothesis that individuals with little faith in the three branches of the federal government will be more likely to own firearms than individuals with higher levels of confidence. Methods . The data were drawn from the General Social Survey for the years 1982-1996 and analyzed with a multivariate logistic regression equation that controlled for many of the variables known to be associated with gun ownership. Results . The regression showed that even in the presence of many control measures, respondents who lacked confidence in the federal government were more likely to own firearms than their counterparts who had greater faith in the federal government. Conclusion . Although the hypothesis relating confidence in government to gun ownership was supported and has important policy implications, the data did not permit us to disentangle possible causal relationships. For that, further research will be necessary.     

The Care of Older People: Australia and the United Kingdom

Australia and the United Kingdom have tried various ways to contain the growth and cost of institutional care for older people. The Australian government adopted central planning strategies from the mid-1980s that succeeded in limiting nursing home places and increasing community services. The United Kingdom government in the mid-1990s required local governments to adopt quasi-market strategies but with less success in containing the growth and cost of institutional care. The two countries changed political direction later in the 1990s but both the Australian Liberal (conservative) government and UK "New Labour" want people to pay more for their care in old age. Each country has something to learn from the policy experiences of the other, including the contentious issue of who should pay for aged care.     

The Dissolution of Joint Living Arrangements among Single Parents and Children: Does Welfare Make a Difference?

Objective . This research examines the claim that states' newfound autonomy to devise their own welfare systems will lead to more intergenerational family dissolution. Critics of welfare reform argue that children residing in states with lower welfare benefits will be more at risk of living apart from parents, as some parents will lack sufficient income to raise children. Methods . Data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation were analyzed employing a discrete-time hazard model. Results . The findings suggest that the risk of children living apart from parents was lower in states offering higher welfare benefits. Also, results indicate that the children at greatest risk of living apart from parents are those who are either newborns or teenagers, are white, or have parents with disabilities. Conclusions . Growing reluctance across all levels of government to provide income support for needy families may accelerate the upward trend in parent-child separation. Results further broaden the literature on household responses to economic setbacks by showing that economic deprivation leads single-parent families to reduce the number of coresident children.     

Implicit debt in public‐sector pension plans: An international comparison

Most countries have separate pension plans for public‐sector employees. The future fiscal burden of these plans can be substantial as the government usually is the largest employer, pension promises in the public sector tend to be relatively generous, and future payments have to be paid out directly from government revenues (pay‐as‐you‐go) or by funded plans (pension funds) which tend to be underfunded. The valuation and disclosure of these promises in some countries lacks transparency, which may hide potentially huge fiscal liabilities to be passed on to future generations of workers. In order to arrive at a fair comparison between countries regarding the fiscal burden of their public‐sector pension plans, this article recommends that unfunded pension liabilities should be measured and reported according to a standard approach for reasons of fiscal transparency and better policy‐making. From a sample of Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, the size of the net unfunded liabilities as of the end of 2008 is estimated in fair value terms. This fiscal burden can also be interpreted as the implicit pension debt in fair value terms.     

Baseline risk and marginal willingness to pay for health risk reduction

Empirical results presented in this paper suggest that parents’ marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for a reduction in morbidity risk from heart disease is inversely related to baseline risk (i.e., the amount of risk initially faced) both for themselves and for their children. For instance, a 40% reduction from the mean of baseline risk results in an increase in MWTP by 70% or more. Thus, estimates of monetary benefits of public programs to reduce heart disease risk would be understated if the standard practice is followed of evaluating MWTP at initial risk levels and then multiplying this value by the number of cases avoided. Estimates are supported by: (1) unique quantitative information on perceptions of the risk of getting heart disease that allow baseline risk to be defined at an individual level and (2) improved econometric procedures to control for well-known difficulties associated with stated preference data.     

Putting the ‘public’ into public service delivery for social welfare in South Africa

Mubangizi BC, Gray M. Putting the ‘public’ into public service delivery for social welfare in South Africa Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 212–219 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of SocialWelfare. The privatisation of some essential services in South Africa has raised severe difficulties for those for whom the idea of fees for services is quite foreign and who, in any case, cannot afford to pay for services. The government has developed several initiatives to educate people about the need to pay for services provided by local government, the largest of which was the Masakhane fees‐for‐services campaign. This article describes two recent initiatives that seek to engage local citizen participation, namely, Integrated Development Plans and izimbizo (or traditional forums). These are examined along with the challenges faced by local government in promoting citizenship participation in service delivery within a decentralised system of governance. The article concludes with some recommendations on how citizen participation can be enhanced so as to make the ‘public’ visible in public service delivery and thus improve social welfare services.     

试论有限且有效的小政府

有限政府指权力受制约的政府，小政府指职能与规模精简的政府，有效政府指行为高效的政府。这三种政府理念各具不同的内涵，也各有其价值。以往学者们在探讨中国的行政发展时总是偏重其中之一，然而中国行政改革的方向能够也应该是有限政府、有效政府与小政府的统一。     

A survey of adolescents’ perception of parents with a son preference

Preference for sons derives from the agricultural economy of the past. It is surprising, however, that this preference still exists in countries which have progressed from an agricultural to an industrial economy. The main aim of this study was therefore to explore the perception of adolescents to parents who did or did not have a preference for sons. Adolescents aged from thirteen to fifteen (n = 1,982) from six Chinese independent schools were invited to fill in a questionnaire in a cluster sampling study. Factor analyses were used to examine the reliability of measurements. Chi-square and independent t tests were run to analyze the data. The results showed significant differences between respondents’ perception of their parents in terms of whether their parents had a preference for sons or not, and that respondents whose parents who had this preference were more likely to have a poor perception of their parents than those whose parents who did not have this preference. Also, both males and females had a poorer perception of parents who had a preference for sons, even though males had received better treatment from parents who had such a preference. In the light of the continued prevalence of preference for sons in some Asian countries, it is suggested that more studies should explore the attitudes and behaviors of those children whose parents have a preference for sons, so that the government and the public are aware of the potentially negative impacts of the preference culture and effective action can be taken to tackle the problem.     

From victims to winners: strategies of negotiation among relocated residents in demolition-compensation events in local China

It has been well documented by researchers that in China’s continual quest for modernisation and urbanisation, many urban and rural residents became displaced and portrayed as victims. A more important question however needs to be explored: do evicted residents learn from others to develop strategies to protect themselves from becoming victims? Through in-depth interviews, primary data collection, documentary research, this study has confirmed that for some evicted residents in Southern China’s urban fringes, when their land was appropriated by local government and developers and they were offered resettlement elsewhere, they did not behave passively to accept the terms of compensation dictated. Instead, they actively learnt from other dwellers who were evicted earlier to become well-organised, resourceful, and sophisticated negotiators in bargaining for their compensation. The group of rural residents proved that they could do better than the evicted urban residents, especially in terms of compensation-negotiation.     

Imprecise preferences and the WTP-WTA disparity

This article reports the results of a study designed to elicit willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) values for changes in the risk of nonfatal road injuries. We examine the possibility that individuals' preferences over combinations of wealth, risk, and safety are imprecise, and that this imprecision might result in the observed disparity between WTP and WTA measures of value. The results confirm that individuals' preferences for safety are significantly imprecise, but that this alone is insufficient to explain more than part of the disparity. Indeed, respondents' estimates of the minimum that they would be prepared to accept for a risk increase frequently exceed the maximum that they would be prepared to pay for an equivalent risk reduction.     

汉代“少吏”的研究现状与前瞻

汉代“少吏”指汉代官僚群体中有百石、斗食、佐史之秩的低级官吏。因其位处官僚结构底层,向为治秦汉制度史者所忽视。通过对百年（1914-2011）来汉代少吏的研究现状之综述,指出目前汉代少吏诸多方面亟待学者深入探讨。如汉代少吏的历史沿革,汉代社会的少吏名目、人数及分布状况,汉代社会的少吏制度,汉代少吏与其他社会势力（各级官僚、豪族、宗族）的互动关系,汉代少吏的趋贱历程等。汉代少吏是一座亟待学者挖掘的矿藏,是一个值得关注的研究课题。     

Preference and belief: Ambiguity and competence in choice under uncertainty

We investigate the relation between judgments of probability and preferences between bets. A series of experiments provides support for the competence hypothesis that people prefer betting on their own judgment over an equiprobable chance event when they consider themselves knowledgeable, but not otherwise. They even pay a significant premium to bet on their judgments. These data connot be explained by aversion to ambiguity, because judgmental probabilities are more ambiguous than chance events. We interpret the results in terms of the attribution of credit and blame. The possibility of inferring beliefs from preferences is questioned.¹     

Opportunity for Childcare: The Impact of Government Initiatives in England upon Childcare Provision

This paper considers the impact of recent government initiatives upon childcare provision for children under the age of five. It is based upon interviews with parents and providers from two contrasting wards in Liverpool. The aim of the research was to identify key issues and concerns with regard to childcare, and perceptions about the impact of developments within social security and education provision. Government policies have concentrated on supporting working parents who need to pay for formal childcare, and on providing an earlier start to the formal education of young children. There is a fear that this focus may be failing to recognize and support the diversity of families and their childcare needs.     

Is Transport Safety More Valuable in the Air?

Using a contingent valuation survey, people's willingness to pay for a given risk reduction is found to be much larger, consistently more than two times as large, when traveling by air compared to by taxi. Follow-up questions revealed that an important reason for this discrepancy is that many experience a higher mental suffering from flying, and that they are willing to pay to reduce this suffering. It was also consistently found that people are willing to pay more for a certain risk reduction if the original price was higher. Policy implications are discussed.     

Extending social security coverage to the rural sector in China

In late 2009 China launched an innovative, voluntary programme that by 2011 had extended pension coverage to 326.4 million people in the rural sector, including contributors and beneficiaries. It requires one contribution per year and provides a flat‐rate benefit and a contributions‐related benefit through a contributory individual account, with a government guarantee that the benefit will continue for life. The programme encourages participation of persons who do not pay income taxes, and thus have no tax incentive to participate, by providing substantial government subsidies. As a further incentive, old‐age benefits are provided to older parents when all their adult children participate in the contributory programme.