Assortative Matching with Explicit Search Costs

In this paper, I analyze a decentralized search and matching economy with transferable utility composed of heterogeneous agents. I explore whether Becker's assortative matching result generalizes to an economy where agents engage in costly search. In an economy with explicit additive search costs, complementarities in joint production (supermodularity of the joint production function) lead to assortative matching. This is in contrast to previous literature, which had shown that in a search economy with discounting, assortative matching may fail even when the joint production function is supermodular.     

Communicating with the Public About Marauding Terrorist Firearms Attacks: Results from a Survey Experiment on Factors Influencing Intention to “Run,Hide, Tell” in the United Kingdom and Denmark

Effective risk communication is an integral part of responding to terrorism, but until recently, there has been very little pre‐event communication in a European context to provide advice to the public on how to protect themselves during an attack. Following terrorist attacks involving mass shootings in Paris, France, in November 2015, the U.K. National Police Chiefs’ Council released a Stay Safe film and leaflet that advises the public to “run,” “hide,” and “tell” in the event of a firearms or weapons attack. However, other countries, including Denmark, do not provide preparedness information of this kind, in large part because of concern about scaring the public. In this survey experiment, 3,003 U.K. and Danish participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no information, a leaflet intervention, and a film intervention to examine the impact of “Run, Hide, Tell” advice on perceptions about terrorism, the security services, and intended responses to a hypothetical terrorist firearms attack. Results demonstrate important benefits of pre‐event communication in relation to enhancing trust, encouraging protective health behaviors, and discouraging potentially dangerous actions. However, these findings also suggest that future communications should address perceived response costs and target specific problem behaviors. Cross‐national similarities in response suggest this advice is suitable for adaptation in other countries.     

Risk-Based Approaches to Deal with Uncertainty in a Data-Poor System: Stakeholder Involvement in Hazard Identification for Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries in Victoria, Australia

Management responsibilities for the system of marine national parks and sanctuaries declared in Victoria, Australia in 2002 have created imperatives for robust, scientifically defendable approaches to identifying threats to valued ecological attributes of the parks, setting management priorities, and developing monitoring systems. We are developing a protocol for ecological risk assessment in the parks that has due regard for the perception of risks by individuals, and ensures that stakeholder values are an intrinsic part of decision making. The inclusive and transparent protocol provides an opportunity for stakeholder involvement in the identification of valued attributes, as well as in the assessment of associated risks. Our approach brings together ideas about how science enters the community engagement domain in ways that promote collaboration and transparency in decision making. A series of stakeholder workshops across the state drew on the expertise of agency staff, community groups, fishers, industry representatives, academics, and knowledgeable park neighbors to identify hazards of major concern in the parks. Many hazards involved predictable, tangible threats like pollution and exotic species, but the approach also identified a number of less obvious threats related to governance issues and the knowledge-base for the parks. Importantly, the workshops with their broad range of stakeholders identified threats not previously considered by the management agency in its internal assessments, and several of these "new" threats are already the subject of action by the agency. The deliberate incorporation of local knowledge and local networks in the risk assessment process also provided opportunities for greater engagement of stakeholders with the management agency.