On the Contingent Valuation of Safety and the Safety of Contingent Valuation: Part 2 - The CV/SG "Chained" Approach

This article reports the results of a study aimed at estimating a willingness-to-pay based value of statistical life for road risks using a multi-stage approach which involves "chaining together" responses to contingent valuation and standard gamble questions.The rationale for employing a multi-stage approach is to break the wealth/risk of death trade-off down into a number of conceptually manageable steps, thereby trying to attenuate the various biases that appear to be pervasive in responses to more direct contingent valuation questions in the health and safety field.     

Social Work Intervention on a New Housing Estate

Summary Families moving into a new housing estate were the subject ofa controlled experiment. Half received social work assistance,half did not. The two groups showed little difference in levelsof health or satisfaction with their environment. The problemsidentified tended to be communal problems of the estate, relatedto its design and management.     

How Do You Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways (The Phenomenology of Being Loved)

The author establishes several criteria which in our culture are used by an individual to determine whether another person loves him/her. Three conditions necessary for the perception of love are elaborated and shown to entail several logical and psychological inconsistencies. It is suggested that our society, while emphasizing the importance of being loved, defines love so as to mitigate against it being perceived.     

A TALE OF TWO QUESTIONS: BENEFITS OF ASKING MORE THAN ONE QUESTION

In the last two months have you had a physical examination?The ability of 660 people to accurately report on their ownrecent health procedures was assessed by comparing the recollectionsof patients to information extracted from their medical records.A major finding was that when people were asked whether theyhad a specific procedure in a given reference period (e.g.,physical exam within the last two months), overreporting occurred.A simple technique reduced overreporting: The technique entailedasking people about the procedure twice, first in connectionwith a different reference period (e.g., physical exam withinthe last six months) and then in connection with the referenceperiod of interest (e.g., physical exam within the last twomonths). Our data support a "Precision" hypothesis: The advantageof the two–time frame questioning procedure is that itconveys to the respondent that the interviewer wants greaterprecision in dating than the single–time frame questionimplies.     

On the Contingent Valuation of Safety and the Safety of Contingent Valuation: Part 1-Caveat Investigator

This article reports the results of two studies aimed at testing and refining a procedure for estimating willingness-to-pay based monetary values of safety using the contingent valuation method. In spite of the fact that respondents were given the opportunity to discuss various safety issues and key concepts in focus group meetings held in advance of individual interviews, and were also given ample opportunity to revise their responses in the light of the overall pattern of these responses, the results show clear evidence of extensive and persistent insensitivity to the scale and scope of the safety improvements that were specified in the contingent valuation questions, as well as vulnerability to framing effects. This clearly casts serious doubt on the reliability and validity of willingness-to-pay based monetary values of safety estimated using conventional contingent valuation procedures.     

Abortion: With Particular Reference to the Developing Role of Counselling

Summary This paper suggests that counselling is a rapidly expandingfield in which professional and para-professional workers mightcombine to produce an effective service, given appropriate selectionand training procedures. Initially these are seen as being providedby professionally qualified social workers with relevant experience.The author has used her own social work experience in abortioncounselling to exemplify the article and to discuss some ofthe existing problems for workers and clients alike.