Reference points,loss aversion,and contingent values for auto safety

This article is concerned with the possible role of reference points and loss aversion (as suggested by prospect theory) in subjects' judgments about the value of increments and decrements in automobile safety. The contingent valuation method is employed in two experiments, both of which consider subjects' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for increased safety and compensation demanded (CD) for decreased safety in hypothetical new vehicle purchases. The results establish that disparities exist in subjects' WTP and CD values for the same increment of auto safety, even for a close-to-market context such as hypothetical new vehicle purchases. The results also indicate that evaluations can be manipulated by changing the perception of the reference point: losses can be recast as forgone gains and forgone gains as losses, altering (or even eliminating) differences between WTP and CD values.I would like to thank Mark Kamlet, Greg Fischer, and Granger Morgan for advice and help in structuring the research for the first experiment; Paul Slovic and Jack Knetsch for suggestions regarding the structure and content of the second experiment; Robin Gregory and two anonymous referees for insightful comments on earlier drafts; and the subjects who provided their time in the two experiments. Michael McNickle provided able research assistance for the second experiment. The survey for the first experiment was partially supported by the Program for Technology and Society at Carnegie Mellon University, with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.     

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.     

Assessing the value of family safety networks in child protective services: Early findings from Minnesota

The considerable number of families served continues to place systemic challenges on the child welfare system. Jurisdictions are turning to new strategies to increase family engagement in services and to leverage taxed or limited resources. Signs of Safety® is a strengths‐based and safety‐focused approach to child protection work that is grounded in partnership and collaboration. This exploratory pilot study with a referred participant sample used interviews with 26 parents and 32 safety network members to explore respondents' perceptions and use of a safety plan and safety network, core components of the Signs of Safety framework. Findings from this pilot investigation include insights about how safety plans and safety networks are established, how they function, and opportunities for enhancing their use with families with the goal of providing supports that increase the likelihood of continued safety for children after case closure. Preliminary results also suggest these tools may contribute to reduced re‐reports to child protection.     

Eliminating the U.S. drug lag: Implications for drug safety

An increase in new drugs first launched in the U.S. and shorter lags between first global drug launch and U.S. approval indicate that the U.S. drug lag has declined. This paper examines the impact of these changes on drug safety using adverse drug reaction data for FDA-approved drugs in 1990 to 2004. Results show two different effects. First, drugs having longer U.S. launch lags (more foreign market experience) have fewer post approval drug risks compared to drugs with shorter launch lags. This result implies that foreign market experience prior to U.S. entry provides information to help alleviate drug-related risks for U.S. patients. Second, drugs that are first launched in the U.S. have fewer serious drug reactions compared to those that were first launched abroad. This result is surprising, and may suggest that first U.S. drug launch signals information about unobserved application quality, which translates into lower post approval drug risks.     

Numerical simulation as a complement to econometric research on workplace safety

Using a computable hedonic equilibrium model of the labor market, we numerically simulate the interactions between workers and firms as tempered by the state and federal regulations intended to influence workplace safety. We compute the changes needed for OSHA to become economically meaningful and determine the impact on safety from further expanding the experience rating of workers' compensation insurance premiums. Most importantly, we show how numerical simulation can serve as a complementary research tool to econometric models. Simulation is well suited for studying extreme policy changes and locating structural conditions pivotal in determining economic outcomes.     

Trans-organizational management: the new frontier for social work administrators

This paper has presented a basic thesis: we cannot rely on institutional rearrangement as our primary vehicle of systemic change. By doing so, we would be repeating the mistakes of the 1960s by instituting changes that will not result in fundamental and log term improvements to societal human services systems. Change can only flow from recognition that there are two types of management that must co-exist: institutional and trans-organizational. In public and nonprofit social work agencies, the former is almost the sole focus of administrative knowledge and skills. Slowly, all the human services (Jaeger, Kaluzny & Magruder-Habib, 1987) are beginning to concentrate on trans-organizational systemic arrangements. Increasingly, social work administrators are acquiring knowledge++ and ability in trans-organizational management. It is a prerequisite for the fundamental systemic changes required by the new demographics of the next decade and the next century.     

ESP教学模式下高职公共英语教师的发展

在ESP教学成为高职公共英语改革的趋势下，高职公共英语教师也必然随之发展。文章从分析高职公共英语教师队伍的现状出发，探讨在ESP教学模式下教师寻求自身的发展的途径。ESP专业发展，ESP教学理念，教材建设与团队建设，给高职公共英语教师提供了在教学和科研上发展的新的突破点。     

Health-health analysis: A new way to evaluate health and safety regulation

Regulations to promote health and safety that are exceptionally costly relative to the expected health benefits may actually worsen health and safety, since compliance reduces other spending, including private spending on health and safety. Past studies relating income and mortality give estimates of the income loss that induces one death — a value that we call willingness-to-spend (WTS)-to be around 9 to9 to 12 million. Such estimates help identify regulations that do not improve health and safety, and moreover, fail benefit-cost comparisons. WTS is a multiple of the willingness to pay to avert a statistical death. International data yield estimates of WTS and willingness-to-pay in different countries.The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the views of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs or OMB. Thanks are due to Ivy Broder, Kenneth S. Chapman, Govind Hariharan, and W. Kip Viscusi for helpful comments. Some of this material is included in theRegulatory Program of the United States Government, April 1, 1992, March 31, 1993, of the Executive Office of the President.     

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.     

Conflicts of interest in vaccine safety research

Conflicts of interest (COIs) cloud vaccine safety research. Sponsors of research have competing interests that may impede the objective study of vaccine side effects. Vaccine manufacturers, health officials, and medical journals may have financial and bureaucratic reasons for not wanting to acknowledge the risks of vaccines. Conversely, some advocacy groups may have legislative and financial reasons to sponsor research that finds risks in vaccines. Using the vaccine-autism debate as an illustration, this article details the conflicts of interest each of these groups faces, outlines the current state of vaccine safety research, and suggests remedies to address COIs. Minimizing COIs in vaccine safety research could reduce research bias and restore greater trust in the vaccine program.     

The value of improved road safety

We report the results of a contingent valuation study for finding a conservative estimate of the value-of-statistical-life in an urban road safety context in Sweden. We estimate the value of both a private-good device and a public-good safety program. The reduction of risk is communicated with a “community analogy” representation of the “Vision Zero” target of the national traffic-safety policy. According to this target, the road-traffic system should be designed so as to prevent accidents when they happen to lead to fatalities or severe injuries. We use the “certainty approach” for ex-post correction of results to remove or mitigate hypothetical bias of responses. As expected we find insensitivity of responses in the full sample to the size of the risk reduction being valued. By our approach we can compute a conservative estimate, based on answers from fully confident respondents, of the value of the largest possible safety enhancement (i.e. fulfilment of the “Vision Zero”). This lower bound estimate indicates a higher average willingness-to-pay for public safety-improving measures than currently assumed in benefit-cost assessments. We also find that the willingness to pay is considerably lower within a public-good than a private-good framework and a weak indication of sensitivity to scale among the most confident respondents. JEL Codes H43 · I18 · Q51     

加入WTO我国生态安全的法律调控

国际贸易中的生态安全问题不可忽视 ;我国生态安全状况本不容乐观 ,而贸易与外资增长对其有重要影响 ;面对加入WTO后的新挑战 ,我国生态安全问题将会更加突出 ,应予充分预测与应对防范 ;鉴于目前国际与国内两个领域的法律机制对贸易中生态安全问题的调控存在诸多缺陷 ,我们迫切需要采取相应的法律对策 ,以有效维护我国的生态安全。     

An opinion and practice survey on the structure and management of data and safety monitoring boards

There is little to no empirical data available on how data and safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) are structured and how they operate. The purpose of this study was to provide data on this. To accomplish this goal, we administered a random survey on current structure and management practices and opinions as reported by principal investigators (PIs) and biostatisticians. We also surveyed Institutional Review Board (IRB) community members, as proxies for the public, as to their opinions on how DSMBs should be structured and managed. A final purpose was to compare opinions about what should be taking place to what is actually happening.     

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.     

Direct practice with substance abusing mothers in the child welfare system: A system perspective

This paper explores the needs and related issues of substance abusing mothers in the child welfare system. Using a framework and through literature review, issues at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels are pinpointed. Six guidelines, incorporating these identified issues, are developed to help practitioners better engage and more effectively work with their clients: (1) treating mothers and children as one unit, (2) providing gender, mother role, and cultural sensitive practice, (3) offering life‐skills training, (4) mobilizing old and facilitating new, nonusing support systems, (5) devising safety plans for children, and (6) organizing an interdisciplinary team and assuming the leadership.     

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.     

A “Swedish” actuarial balance for a notional defined contribution pension scheme with disability and minimum pension benefits

This article proposes a “Swedish” type actuarial balance sheet (ABS) for a notional defined contribution (NDC) scheme with disability and minimum pension benefits. The proposed ABS splits the pension system in two parts: the pure NDC part and the redistributive part, which includes the assets and liabilities originating from non‐contributory rights. The article contains a numerical example that sheds light on the real applicability of our proposal. The model has practical implications that could be of interest to policy‐makers, given that it integrates actuarial and social aspects of public pensions and discloses the real cost of redistribution through minimum pensions.     

Governmental Rationales for Installing Electronic Information Systems: A Quest for Responsive Social Work

Various authors have argued that electronic information systems (EIS) do not necessarily improve the responsiveness of social work. One of the main reasons given for these failings is the flawed implementation of EIS by professionals. However, we argue that the ongoing debate fails to be explicit about governmental rationales for installing EIS. This article presents the findings of a content analysis that aimed to uncover the governmental rationales for installing EIS in the Flemish child and welfare protection (CWP) system. Our analysis revealed three clusters of rationales. The first cluster supports the use of EIS as an instrument to better match supply and demand. The second cluster shows that the gathered data also serve as an instrument for accountability. A third cluster focuses on the aim of creating more uniformity. Based on our analysis, we argue that it is not flawed implementation that impedes the development of responsive social work; rather, the governmental rationales themselves are flawed.     

Children and safety in Australian policy: Implications for organisations and practitioners

Child safety is now a national policy priority in Australia. Extensive enquiries and reviews have escalated legislative and policy responses focused on developing, maintaining and monitoring “child safe” organisations. The recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse point to the importance of cultural conditions within organisations in supporting child safety and the need for responsive change in some organisations. Drawing on a recent policy analysis, undertaken as part of a larger Australian Research Council Discovery Project, this article examines how children and safety are constructed, within and across relevant state and federal government policies in Australia, and the implications of this. Distinctions are drawn between conceptualisations of children within the broader education policy context and two specific policy contexts in which children are considered particularly vulnerable to abuse – out‐of‐home care and disability. The findings indicate that policy discourses of “child safe” potentially foster different emphases and approaches in organisations. These have implications for the way children are positioned in relation to their safety, how their rights are recognised and implemented, and what is required to foster cultural conditions within organisations to best support children’s safety and wellbeing.     

Replacement Cost Endorsement and Opportunistic Fraud in Automobile Insurance

Traditional insurance contracts do not offer protection against the replacement value of a vehicle. A replacement cost endorsement gives the opportunity to get a new vehicle in the case of a total theft or in the case of total destruction of the car in a road accident. This type of protection was introduced in Canada in the late 1980's. It is also offered in France and many insurers in the United States are going to move in that direction. We propose tests that separate moral hazard from adverse selection in the analysis of the effect of this additional protection on car theft. We show that holders of car insurance policies with a replacement cost endorsement have a higher probability of theft near the end of this additional protection (usually 24 months following the acquisition of a new car). Our tests indicate that this result is a form of ex post moral hazard or opportunistic insurance fraud.