Estimating Fatalities Induced by the Economic Costs of Regulations

Regulatory costs are paid by individuals, which leaves them with less disposable income. Since individuals on average use additional income to make their lives safer and healthier, the regulatory costs lead to higher mortality risks and fatalities. Based on data from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study relating income to the risk of dying, approximately each $5 million of regulatory cost induces a fatality if costs are borne equally among the public. If costs are borne proportional to income, approximately $11.5 million in regulatory costs induces a fatality. Cost-induced fatalities disproportionally burden the poor and minorities, particularly blacks.     

Elicitation of health values from mortality risk reduction

There are concerns regarding uncertainty about the accuracy of applying available empirical willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for reducing accidental deaths to value changes in risks of pollution-related deaths. In this study, we develop a theoretical model on defining WTP, and its determinants, and derive WTP estimates for changes in pollution-related mortality risks with varying morbidity and timing attributes. A survey is designed and conducted with 100 subjects. Each subject was to complete five choice sets and provided a range of implicit values of statistical life (VSL). The choices are estimated using the logit procedure. And, using the results of estimated multinomial logit model, the VSL is estimated to about $6.2 million.     

Planning for natural disasters in a stochastic world

We examine the risks and management of natural disasters. A benefit-cost framework focuses attention on (1) designing control structures, such as dams and levees, and mitigation policies, such as construction standards, to protect lives and property against small and medium, rather than large sized natural disasters; and (2) warning and evacuation to save lives for large natural disasters. Providing information rather than command solutions generally enhances social benefits, if people understand the risks and bear the expected costs. Requiring actuarially fair insurance simultaneously provides information and has individuals bear the expected costs.     

Alternative institutional responses to asbestos

The level of asbestos risk varies widely, with insulation workers facing risks many orders of magnitude greater than other groups, such as school children. After a period of regulatory neglect, asbestos risks are now among the mos stringently regulated risks, with costs per case of cancer prevented on the order of $100 million. Asbestos litigation triggered much of the public action against asbestos, as asbestos cases constituted the majority of all product liability cases in the federal courts from 1988 to 1991. The litigation costs have, however, been substantial, almost three times as great as the amounts transferred to asbestos disease victims. Risk communication potentially could promote efficient risk levels and victim compensation.     

Measures of Mortality Risks

Different risks of death are not equivalent because of differences in timing. This paper develops measures of mortality risks that recognize the probability of death, the duration of life lost, and the role of discounting. These adjustments lead to a substantial reordering of the major causes of death. Recognition of duration-related issues explains much of the public's misperception of mortality risk probabilities, which may reflect duration-related concerns rather than biases in risk beliefs. Our estimates suggest that in forming their risk beliefs the public discounts years of life lost at a rate from 3.3–12.4 percent. Standardization of lifetimes at risk also alters the relative efficacy of regulatory policies for which we provide a variety of cost-effectiveness measures.     

Do Life-Saving Regulations Save Lives?

Life-saving regulations may be counter-productive since they have an indirect mortality effect through the reduction in disposable income. This paper estimates the effect of income on mortality, controlling for the initial health status and a host of personal characteristics. The analysis is based on a random sample of the adult Swedish population of over 40,000 individuals followed up for 10–17 years. The income loss that will induce an expected fatality is estimated to be $6.8 million when the costs are borne equally among all adults, $8.4 million when the costs are borne proportionally to income and $9.8 million when the costs are borne progressively to income.     

Children's Homicide and Road Deaths in England and Wales and the USA: An International Comparison 1974-1997

Correspondence to Professor Colin Pritchard, Department of Mental Health, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 OYG, UK. Summary Child murder often leads to demands for new legislation. Todetermine relative risks and the need for such change, children's(0–14) homicide and road deaths were compared internationally.All data were extrapolated from WHO standardized mortality statisticsand ratios of change were calculated. Five-year summed actualnumbers and rates for 1974–78 and 1993–97 were usedfor comparison. The findings indicate that children's road deathsfell substantially everywhere across the two periods; Englandand Wales had the lowest rate, and the fifth biggest reduction.In addition, in every country, the figures for children's homicidewere substantially lower than road deaths. England and Waleshad been fourth highest but by the later period were the thirdlowest. While children's homicide rose substantially in Franceand the USA, the biggest reductions were found in Japan andin England and Wales. For every country considered, road deathsfell proportionately more than deaths by homicide, althoughthe latter remained considerably lower than road deaths. Thestatistics led to the clear interpretation that the averagechild is substantially more at risk of being killed on the roadthan being murdered.     

中国的集权与分权:“风险论”与历史证据

在中国历史上，中央集权与地方分权的关系经历了一系列重大演变。这些演变给我们提出如下三类问题：第一，在地方政治体制上，为什么一部分王朝在开国初期采用了分封制，而当王朝稳定下来之后，却又谋求削藩?第二，在边疆和西南少数民族地区，为什么元代和明代采用“土司制”，清代却推行“改土归流”?第三，在省级政区和省级政府的设置上，为什么汉人政权表现出兴废不定和周期性循环，而游牧民族建立的中原王朝却不存在这种循环?此外，清代之后建立的汉人政权为什么又打破了这种周期循环，建立起稳定的省级政区和统一的省级政府?本文论证了上述问题可以用“风险论”——即中央政府追求“统治风险最小化”的行为及其面临的约束条件——来解释，还同时比较了“风险论”与“帝国的治理逻辑”和“行政发包制模型”在解释能力上的差别。     

Risk-risk analysis

Constraints on the use of benefit-cost tests have generated increased interest in risk-risk analysis as a regulatory test. The effect on individual mortality of the income losses arising from regulatory expenditures can be determined from direct empirical estimates, which this article surveys. The article proposes an alternative formulation based on information on the value of life and the marginal propensity to spend on health, which implies a loss of one statistical life for every $50 million in expenditures. Occupational injury and fatality costs caused by expenditures represent another type of risk tradeoff that could be considered within risk-risk analysis or, more generally, a benefit-cost test.     

White Man's Magic Makes Black Deaths in Custody Disappear

Recent articles on Aboriginal deaths in custody appear to demonstrate that Aborigines and nonaborigines faced equal risks of dying in prison or police lockup over the period 1980–1988. A major criticism of the argument from which this conclusion is made, is the weight it places on a census of prisoners on one particular day during the nine years. In fact figures from such censuses are highly variable. The argument also ignores important risk factors such as sex, age, and exposure to prison of an individual, as well as variations between states, between locations within states, and between times of year. Apart from not convincingly demonstrating that day-to-day risks are similar for Aborigines and nonaborigines, the approach also does not attempt to assess the probability that an individual will ultimately die in prison. Using calculations based on recent research into the recidivisim of Western Australian prisoners, we show that the latter probability, for an Aborigine in Western Australia, is likely to be of the order of three or more times that of a nonaborigine. Such a disproportion may not be accounted for entirely by the over-representation of Aborigines in custody.     

Statistical vs. identified lives in benefit-cost analysis

Evaluation of projects that affect mortality risk usually assumes that risk changes are small and similar across individuals. In reality, risks differ among individuals and information about risk heterogeneity determines the extent to which affected lives are “statistical” or “identified” and influences the outcome of benefit-cost analysis (BCA). The effects of information about risk heterogeneity on BCA depend on, inter alia, whether information concerns heterogeneity of baseline or change in risk and whether valuation uses compensating or equivalent variation. BCA does not systematically favor identified over statistical lives. We suggest some political factors that may explain the apparent public bias.

Organizational Alternatives for Companies' Management of Occupational Risks: The Examples of Spain and Argentina

This study discusses the various options available to companies for the management of occupational risks. In this context, occupational accident insurance schemes in Spain and Argentina are analysed, with reference to the theory of organizational economics. Spain has 75 years' experience of such schemes, while in Argentina they have only recently been introduced. Although the two models have similar goals, their differences, in terms of competition, regulation and ownership, lead to different incentives for those concerned: workers, companies, insurers and regulatory bodies.     

When corporate social responsibility meets the challenges of rising globalisation risks

Global firms are facing great difficulties in containing new risks along their supply chains: reputation risks, contestation risks, safety risks and markets risks, as well as the risk of having to deal with new laws and more binding norms. The lack of internal control on these Global Value Chains is revealed through different social or environmental crises. Mass media are mobilised by NGOs and citizens as a means of pressure, which undermines the reputation of firms and therefore their immaterial assets. These crises show that the codes of conduct and the so-called soft law instruments fail to control the supply chain, but at the same time, these instruments begin to set new standards to face these new risks. This paper discusses this evolutionary institutional process, and stresses how CSR is not only a fiction but starts having real effects by creating new institutions to respond to risks. We will focus on reputation risks and markets risks to show that, even though CSR might not have led to a completely new system of rules, the institutional process under study has a meaningful impact on the regulatory framework.     

Cross-country analyses don't estimate health-health responses

Health-Health analysis has attracted considerable attention as one way to evaluate the costs of regulatory policy to people. When a regulation is adopted to reduce the “risk” experienced by a particular group, health-health analysis seeks to evaluate when the indirect effects of an increase in prices or reduction in income offsets the direct effects intended by the regulation. If these indirect effects are large enough, then the general population can experience an increase in their overall risk. The article considers health-health analysis as it relates to policy decisions from conceptual and empirical perspectives. A comparative static analysis was a simple model is used to illustrate the factors influencing the relative effects of income and policy variables on risk. The empirical analysis also suggests that results with aggregate cross-country data and simple reduced-form models for the relationship of mortality to income are sensitive to model specifications and the sample composition.     

Passive Smoking and Health Care: Health Perceptions Myth vs. Health Care Reality

Individuals exhibit systematic tendencies to overstate the risks of unlikely lethal events. If the risks of passive smoking are overstated in this manner, and if passive smoking is not harmful to adult health, then passive smoking by adults should have a discernible effect on subjective evaluations of health status, but no corresponding effect on health. This idea is examined empirically below using data from the National Health Interview Surveys. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. Passive smoking is associated with assessments of significantly poorer health. Poorer health assessments are associated with significantly greater medical resource use. However, direct estimates of the effects of passive smoking on health care use indicate no statistical association whatsoever. These results are consistent with a model whereby individuals systematically overestimate the effects of passive smoking on their health and where the short-term effects of passive smoking on adult health care costs are negligible.     

Working with children checks —time to step back?

Screening the criminal history of people seeking to work or volunteer in child‐related organisations commenced in Australia in 2000, and since then ‘working with children check’ schemes have expanded, largely without question. Every jurisdiction now has a legislated or administrative scheme, routinely checking the criminal histories of thousands of people to determine if they pose a risk to children. But in any regulatory regime, questions of effectiveness and efficiency arise. The main features of working with children check schemes operating in Australia are examined in this paper. Problems related to effectiveness, equity, and costs are identified. A better balance is needed between routine criminal history checks and other mechanisms for identifying and monitoring the risks posed to children by people who work with them.     

Disclosure of Individualized Research Results: A Precautionary Approach

Assessing and managing risks to participants is a central point of contention in the debate about disclosing individualized research results. Those who favor disclosure of only clinically significant results think that disclosing clinically insignificant results is risky and costly, and that harm prevention should take precedence over other ethical considerations. Those who favor giving participants the option of full disclosure regard these risks as insubstantial, and think that obligations to benefit participants and promote their autonomy and right to know outweigh the obligation to prevent harm or financial considerations. The risks of disclosing clinically insignificant research results are currently not quantifiable, due to lack of empirical data. The precautionary principle provides some insight into this debate because it applies to decision-making concerning risks that are plausible but not quantifiable. A precautionary approach would favor full disclosure of individualized results with appropriate safeguards to prevent, minimize, or mitigate risks to participants, such as: validating testing methods; informing participants about their options for receiving tests results and the potential benefits and risks related to receiving results; assessing participants' comfort with handling uncertainty; providing counseling and advice to participants; following-up with individuals who receive tests results; and forming community advisory boards to help investigators deal with issues related to disclosure.     

Making Low Probabilities Useful

This paper explores how people process information on low probability-high consequence negative events and what it will take to get individuals to be sensitive to the likelihood of these types of accidents or disasters. In a set of experiments, information is presented to individuals on the likelihood of serious accidents from a chemical facility. Comparisons are made with other risks, such as fatalities from automobile accidents, to see whether laypersons can determine the relative safety of different plants. We conclude that fairly rich context information must be available for people to be able to judge differences between low probabilities. In particular, it appears that one needs to present comparison scenarios that are located on the probability scale to evoke people's own feelings of risk. The concept of evaluability recently introduced by Hsee and his colleagues provides a useful explanation of these findings.     

Disclosure of individualized research results: a precautionary approach

Assessing and managing risks to participants is a central point of contention in the debate about disclosing individualized research results. Those who favor disclosure of only clinically significant results think that disclosing clinically insignificant results is risky and costly, and that harm prevention should take precedence over other ethical considerations. Those who favor giving participants the option of full disclosure regard these risks as insubstantial, and think that obligations to benefit participants and promote their autonomy and right to know outweigh the obligation to prevent harm or financial considerations. The risks of disclosing clinically insignificant research results are currently not quantifiable, due to lack of empirical data. The precautionary principle provides some insight into this debate because it applies to decision-making concerning risks that are plausible but not quantifiable. A precautionary approach would favor full disclosure of individualized results with appropriate safeguards to prevent, minimize, or mitigate risks to participants, such as: validating testing methods; informing participants about their options for receiving tests results and the potential benefits and risks related to receiving results; assessing participants' comfort with handling uncertainty; providing counseling and advice to participants; following-up with individuals who receive tests results; and forming community advisory boards to help investigators deal with issues related to disclosure.     

“一体多面”：中华帝制时期的国家—社会关系再研究

关于中华帝制时期国家与社会的关系特征国内外学术界提出了诸多理论概括,诸如“士绅自治”“吏民社会”“官民合作”,等等。本文从行政发包制理论的视角重新审视关于中华帝制时期国家—社会关系的现有理论概括,借助“行政外包”这一分析概念,强调特定的治理领域特征与行政外包的具体形态之间的对应关系,进而揭示国家与社会互动关系的运行机制和内在逻辑。本文试图提出“一体多面”的概念,重新概括中华帝制时期国家与社会关系的总体特征,为理解中华帝制的“权力一元性”与“治理多样性”的奇妙结合提供新的观察视角和分析框架。