Scale and context effects in the valuation of transport safety

How can willingness-to-pay-based values of safety for public transport modes, such as London's Underground railway system, be expected to relate to the corresponding value for road safety? This article reports results which suggest that such values should be set at a substantial premium in relation to their roads counterpart. However, this premium appears to derive entirely from considerations of control, voluntariness, and responsibility, and, contrary to popular wisdom, apparently owesnothing whatsoever to the possibility of large-scale “catastrophic” accidents on modes such as the Underground.     

过度经济激励倾向与国有企业分配制度失灵

过度的经济激励很容易培育起人们无限的欲望追求,而这种欲望一旦主导人们的行为,企业的分配制度就很难通过经济利益激励来实现人们积极性的持续发挥,结果导致国有企业分配制度的失灵。如何改变这种局面,只有调整人们的激励机制,充分考虑人的行为具有的多样化特征,在此基础上增加国有企业分配制度涉及的内容,包括增加激励的责任内容和激励的竞争性等手段才能改变国有企业分配制度失灵的局面。     

Communication and its cost in graph-restricted games

We consider cooperative games which are modified by subordination to communication networks. Two players i and j will be able to cooperate only if they pay for the cost w _ij of their communication link (i,j). Coalitions of players are treated similarly and a new characteristic function form game is developed thus. We also examine incentive for players to cooperate in such situations as well as a related index of a player's communicative strength.     

Child safety in policy: Who is being kept safe and from what?

Keeping children safe from harm is a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive inquiries and reviews have highlighted institutions' persistent failures to respond ethically and appropriately to child abuse and its life-long impacts on survivors. Policy efforts now reflect considerable emphasis on safeguarding children, including through the development of ‘child safe’ organisations. The realisation of these policy aspirations requires close attention to how ‘child safe’ is conceptualised and operationalised in different organisational contexts. Drawing on an analysis of policy in Australia and other international jurisdictions, namely New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland, this article engages critically with the notion of ‘child safe’ in policy, to explore who is to be safe, from what and how, in organisational settings. The findings suggest emergent discourses of ‘child safe’ are bound up with particular constructions of both children and safety, reflect current social and political understandings and agendas, and have implications for organisations' approaches to safety. Ensuring the safety of children in Australia and other jurisdictions requires continuing scrutiny of policy implementation to make sure current policy efforts are not reduced to compliance-based imperatives that protect organisations, but fail to create the cultural conditions that enhance children's wellbeing and safety.     

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.     

A Multi-Dimensional Conceptual Framework for Trauma-Informed Practice in Addictions Programming

Previous research has conceptualized trauma-informed practice in relation to five key values: safety, trust, choice, collaboration, and empowerment. This research identifies key organizational, programmatic, and interpersonal characteristics in community-based residential addictions treatment programming that exemplify each of these principles. Utilizing qualitative research methods, involving open-ended, one to one interviews with clients in residential substance misuse treatment (n = 41), respondents identified the importance of experiencing “safety” in relation to physical safety, confidentiality, reassurance, rule enforcement, and peer relationships. “Trust” was manifested in sharing, staff availability, nonjudgmental interactions, positive relationship dynamics, and caring. “Choice” was articulated in relation to individual needs, participation, opportunities, and focus of efforts. “Collaboration” was characterized in relation to opportunities for feedback, planning, goal setting, specificity, and support. Finally, “empowerment” was characterized by comfort in sharing, trigger management, trauma awareness, and understanding. The findings provide a conceptual framework for a trauma-informed social services organizational practice environment. Findings can inform adaptations to social service delivery processes and programs to become aligned with the values of trauma-informed practice. Future research can build on this framework by testing the study findings with quantitative methods along with replicating current methods in other social service delivery sectors.     

Women's pensions in Sweden

This article analyses the effect of the Swedish pension rules on women's and men's pensions. This is done on the basis of an empirical analysis of a representative sample of the population. The study indicates that the rules are least advantageous for women in typical low-wage occupations. I also relate different people's pension benefits to what they have had to pay into the pension system in the course of their working lives. My calculations show that female low-wage earners probably have to pay more for their pensions than other groups.     

Public Perceptions of Risk and Preference-Based Values of Safety

This article reports the results of two studies aimed at estimating preference-based values of safety in three contexts—namely rail, domestic fires and fires in public places—relative to the corresponding value for roads using matching (or equivalence) questions. In addition, both studies included a variety of questions intended to shed light on respondents' perceptions of risk and attitudes to safety in the various contexts. While the two studies were, to all intents and purposes, identical in the procedure that they employed, the essential difference between them was that the first study took place in late 1998, whereas the second study was carried out in early 2000 in the aftermath of a major rail accident at Ladbroke Grove near London's Paddington station which occurred in October 1999 and in which 29 passengers and 2 train drivers died. In addition, the second study sample was deliberately weighted to contain an above-average proportion of regular rail users. These studies demonstrated how certain factors which have been shown to affect people's perception of risk (see Slovic, P. (1992). In S. Krimsky and D. Golding (eds.), Social Theories of Risk, Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 117–152) also affected our respondents' priorities over safety programs. The results also showed however, that the impact of these perceptions upon the trade-offs between preventing deaths in different hazard contexts was a good deal less pronounced than has been suggested by the value differentials that are currently implicit—and in some cases, explicit—in public policy making.     

Policy relevant heterogeneity in the value of statistical life: New evidence from panel data quantile regressions

We examine differences in the value of statistical life (VSL) across potential wage levels in panel data using quantile regressions with intercept heterogeneity. Latent heterogeneity is econometrically important and affects the estimated VSL. Our findings indicate that a reasonable average cost per expected life saved cut-off for health and safety regulations is 7 million to7 million to 8 million per life saved, but the VSL varies considerably across the labor force. Our results reconcile the previous discrepancies between hedonic VSL estimates and the values implied by theories linked to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Because the VSL varies elastically with income, regulatory agencies should regularly update the VSL used in benefit assessments, increasing the VSL proportionally with changes in income over time.     

The marginal value of job safety: A contingent valuation study

This article estimates the marginal value of safety based on contingent values obtained in a labor-market-oriented national random-sample mail survey. Thus, worker preferences for safety are assessed directly, in contrast to the hedonic price method that has been used almost exclusively in related studies. Key aspects of this article are that (1) contingent values are obtained for small changes in risks of job-related fatal accidentsperceived by respondents, and (2) relationships are analyzed between respondents' marginal safety values and their income, socioeconomic/demographic characteristics, union membership status, and initial levels of risk faced.     

Microcosms and macrocosms: Seat allocation in proportional representation systems

Three alternative methods are proposed to determine a normative standard concerning the fair proportion of seats a party ought to receive in a representative assembly as a function of the voters' preference orderings. The methods differ from one another in their treatment of indifference relations and the assumptions they make about the type of scale underlying voters' preferences. Common to all three methods is the basic idea that the ratio between the number of voters preferring party i over j to the number of voters preferring party j over i can be tested for consistency, in a precisely defined sense, and if sufficiently consistent, can be appropriately scaled to determine the proportion of seats each party ought to receive. The proposed solutions are shown to satisfy several desiderata when the matrix of preference ratios is consistent. When there are cyclical majorities of equal size, the matrix of preference ratios is inconsistent. The main application of the proposed scheme is as a normative benchmark against which actual or proposed voting procedures can be evaluated in proportional representation systems. The theoretical implications of these solutions are briefly discussed.This research was supported by the United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel. We wish to thank Steven Brams, David V. Budescu, and Joseph Greenberg for many helpful comments.     

A Rule For Updating Ambiguous Beliefs

When preferences are such that there is no unique additive prior, the issue of which updating rule to use is of extreme importance. This paper presents an axiomatization of the rule which requires updating of all the priors by Bayes rule. The decision maker has conditional preferences over acts. It is assumed that preferences over acts conditional on event E happening, do not depend on lotteries received on E ^c, obey axioms which lead to maxmin expected utility representation with multiple priors, and have common induced preferences over lotteries. The paper shows that when all priors give positive probability to an event E, a certain coherence property between conditional and unconditional preferences is satisfied if and only if the set of subjective probability measures considered by the agent given E is obtained by updating all subjective prior probability measures using Bayes rule.     

From Border Control to Migration Management: The Case for a Paradigm Change in the Western Response to Transborder Population Movement

Today most international migratory movement is from the rest of the world to the West. Much of this movement is irregular because the opportunities available for authorized migration to Western countries are extremely limited. The main argument made in this article is that Western countries need not, should not and cannot control transborder movement in the manner attempted until now, but that they can and should cooperate with countries of origin, countries of transit and other receiving countries to manage migration in a manner which benefits all stakeholders, including would‐be migrants.     

Science and Technology

Following Academician Kolmogorov's initial statement over his signature, the rest of the article is a popularized version of a report prepared for a graduate seminar of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University. The popularization was prepared by the editors of the magazine Tekhnika Molodyozhi (Technique for the Youth) in conjunction with Kolmogorov's colleague from the University's Laboratory of Probability and Statistical Methods, N. G. Rychkova. Tekhnika Molodyozhi, 1961, Nos. 10-11; slightly abridged.     

胡绳新民主主义革命时期党史研究述论

胡绳认为,新民主主义时期党史研究的重要目的是总结经验教训,为社会主义现代化建设提供有益的借鉴;要充分论证毛泽东思想的创造性,充分论证在新民主主义革命时期中共党内存在的＂左＂倾教条主义的危害性;研究新民主主义革命时期的党史一定要把中国近代社会作为重要的历史背景,党史研究必须要注意中国近代社会历史发展的全局。他提出要以现代化为线索来编写建国前历史的新框架,要重视对中间势力的研究;提出了可资利用的党史研究的方法和新民主主义革命时期研究的新论断,推进了新民主主义革命时期的党史研究。     

老年社会工作在养老机构中的应用探讨

随着人口老化,越来越多的国家政府开始正视老龄问题。而作为社会福利服务的重要组成部分,老年社会工作更日益受到重视。我国内地老年社会工作的发展却很滞后,大多数养老机构对于老年社会工作如何介入没有一个清晰的认识。这是由于我国内地社会工作发展较晚,相关的研究和实践都不是很充分的缘故。本文以笔者的实践经历为基础,从老年社会工作在养老机构服务中的角色、相处原则与介入的模式,尝试探讨老年社会工作在养老机构中的应用。     

The Fallacy of Generalizing from Egg Salad in False-Belief Research

Geraerts et al. (2008)   reported that misleading individuals with false beliefs about having gotten sick on egg salad in childhood can reduce the probability of subsequently consuming egg salad. They concluded that their results "… have important implications for people's food and dieting choices…" (p. 752). We argue that their conclusion represents a fundamental generalization problem. We report new findings that, together with other recent studies, data on disgust and the fact that hard boiled eggs produce a chemical associated with rotten food, suggest that Geraerts et al.'s success in reducing individuals' interest in eating egg salad is likely restricted to less appealing foods that are less frequently consumed. Because of potential applicability of their results to public health and well-being, and the more general applicability of the false-feedback paradigm to legal cases, it is important to accurately limit these conclusions and generalizations.     

Making better regulation,making regulation better?

Better Regulation is a re-regulatory strategy that has unfolded in Britain (and, of course, beyond, through Europe and the OECD) across the past decade. This article beings by setting out some quantitative indicators of trends in national and local enforcement in three key areas of protective regulation – food hygiene and food safety, workers’ health and safety, and pollution control – from 2003/2004 to 2012/2013. It then goes on, in its main sections, to detail some of the ways Better Regulation under conditions of austerity has worked through at the level of local enforcement via a case study of four Merseyside Local Authorities; in so doing, it draws principally upon qualitative insights from a series of interviews, as well as data gleaned from a further series of Freedom of Information requests. In so doing, it considers how, on the ground, Better Regulation is made. It concludes that Better Regulation appears less about ‘better’ regulation, more about business-friendly regulation with diminishing law enforcement. There is good reason to suggest that regulatory functions will likely be increasingly re-cast as part of growth initiatives.     

Discounting and the evaluation of lifesaving programs

The evaluation of lifesaving programs whose benefits extend into the future involves two discounting issues. The intragenerational discounting problem is how to express, in age-j dollars, reductions in an individual's conditional probability of dying at some future age k. Having discounted future lifesaving benefits to the beginning of each individual's life, one is faced with the problem of discounting these benefits to the present—the intergenerational discounting problem. We discuss both problems from the perspectives of cost-benefit and costeffectiveness analyses. These principles are then applied to lifesaving programs that involve a latency period.The authors are, respectively, Associate Professor of Economics, Univesity of Maryland and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future; and Senior Fellow and Vice President, Resources for the Future. We thank the National Science Foundation for their support under grant DIR-8711083.     

Performance of soccer on the stock market: Evidence from Turkey

This paper assesses the effect of soccer success on stock market returns for three major Turkish teams (Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray) after certain characteristics of the stock market are controlled for. The empirical evidence presented here suggests that Beşiktaş's win against foreign rivals in the Winner's Cup increases stock market returns. The same effect is not present for the other two big teams (Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray). The day of the week effect on the stock market and the relationship between risk and return are also presented.