The risky business of insurance pricing

The factors influencing insurance pricing decisions are assessed using the ISO product liability ratemaking files for 1980–1984. The mean loss level has a strong positive effect on manual rates and premium rates/exposure. Evidence on a variety of ambiguity measures is more mixed. As a broad generalization, risk ambiguity lowers manual rates, which may reflect exclusion of large loss outliers as being unrepresentative. Risk ambiguity tends to have a positive effect on actual pricing decisions for particular policies, especially bodily injury lines and the interactive risk-ambiguity model.     

Portmanteau test for conditional heteroscedasticity, using ranks of squared residuals

Squared residual autocorrelations have been found useful in detecting departures from linearity in time series models. This is especially the case with data exhibiting heterogeneity in variances. A rank test is proposed which is much more robust than its parametric counterpart.     

The availability of personal and external coping resources: Thier impact on job stress and employee attitudes during organizational restructuring

This study examines the relationships among personal coping resources, social support, external coping resources, job stressors and job strains in a sample of 110 American Telephone and Telegraph employees undergoing a major organizational restructuring. The study expanded on a model suggested by Ashford (1988) by defining another category of coping resources that employees may draw upon to deal with the stressors and strains which occur during major organizational changes. External coping resources were defined as those which provided employees with a sense of 'vicarious control' in stressful situations. Results indicated that personal coping resources, social support and external coping resources had a direct effect upon job stressor and strain levels. No 'buffering' effect of these coplng resources was found. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that external coping resources added to the prediction of job stressors and strains even when pertonal coping resources and social support were entered first into the prediction questions.     

Liquid nitrogen treatment of hand and plantar warts.

The author reports on a study of the liquid nitrogen treatment of warts at the Rutgers University Student Health Center. He demonstrates that liquid nitrogen therapy is a safe, effective treatment method, appropriate for use by nurses and other primary providers in a college health setting.     

Unions,PAC contributions,and the NAFTA vote

Political action committees (PACs), especially those controlled by organized labor and business, have been shown to affect Congressional voting. We explore how PACs influenced the House of Representatives’ vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The NAFTA vote is analyzed because organized labor strongly opposed the treaty while business generally supported it and because of the straight-forward voting generated by its fast-track status. Probit analysis of a unique, unpublished data set containing information about PAC and non-PAC contributions to the 1992 House election campaigns demonstrates that Representatives who depended largely on labor PACs tended to oppose NAFTA, while Representatives who derived a large proportion of their campaign contributions from business PACs tended to favor its passage.     

Modeling for Risk Assessment of Neurotoxic Effects

The regulation of noncancer toxicants, including neurotoxicants, has usually been based upon a reference dose (allowable daily intake). A reference dose is obtained by dividing a no-observed-effect level by uncertainty (safety) factors to account for intraspecies and interspecies sensitivities to a chemical. It is assumed that the risk at the reference dose is negligible, but no attempt generally is made to estimate the risk at the reference dose. A procedure is outlined that provides estimates of risk as a function of dose. The first step is to establish a mathematical relationship between a biological effect and the dose of a chemical. Knowledge of biological mechanisms and/or pharmacokinetics can assist in the choice of plausible mathematical models. The mathematical model provides estimates of average responses as a function of dose. Secondly, estimates of risk require selection of a distribution of individual responses about the average response given by the mathematical model. In the case of a normal or lognormal distribution, only an estimate of the standard deviation is needed. The third step is to define an adverse level for a response so that the probability (risk) of exceeding that level can be estimated as a function of dose. Because a firm response level often cannot be established at which adverse biological effects occur, it may be necessary to at least establish an abnormal response level that only a small proportion of individuals would exceed in an unexposed group. That is, if a normal range of responses can be established, then the probability (risk) of abnormal responses can be estimated. In order to illustrate this process, measures of the neurotransmitter serotonin and its metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid in specific areas of the brain of rats and monkeys are analyzed after exposure to the neurotoxicant methylene-dioxymethamphetamine. These risk estimates are compared with risk estimates from the quantal approach in which animals are classified as either abnormal or not depending upon abnormal serotonin levels.     

Ninth-Grade Students' Attitudes Toward Nontraditional Occupations

This study explored how students choose careers, their attitudes toward vocational education, and whether or not they would consider enrolling in a nontraditional vocational education program.     

Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions: an assessment of different instruments

The possibility that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use might lead to global warming has become a leading environmental concern. Many scientific and environmental organizations have called for immediate action to limit carbon dioxide production. For the most part, however, public debate has focused on a single policy instrument: a carbon tax applied to fossil fuels in proportion to their carbon content. We present a detailed model of the U.S. economy and use it to compare carbon taxes with two other instruments that could achieve the same reduction in carbon dioxide emissions: a tax on the energy content of fossil fuels (a BTU tax) and an ad valorem tax on fuel use. We find that carbon taxes can achieve a given reduction with the least overall effect on the economy, but with a large effect on coal mining. Energy taxes are fairly similar to carbon taxes but have slightly less impact on coal mining and slightly greater overall cost. In contrast, ad valorem taxes fall much more lightly on coal mining but have a much greater effect on the economy as a whole.