The Role of Insurance in Managing Natural Hazard Risks: Private Versus Social Decisions

We explore the interaction between individual and collective decisions concerning natural hazards. Collective actions such as building a dam change the risks faced by private individuals. We show that, with proper incentives, individual reactions to such changes in risk can serve to enhance risk management by utilizing individual's decisions to take account of their specialized knowledge about their risk preferences and losses. We demonstrate that the efficient response to construction of a dam may be private actions that lead to a fully anticipated increase in flood damage. In such instances, zoning that focuses on reducing flood damage may lead to less efficient use of the flood plain. More generally, even where incentives for underinvestment in market insurance and self-insurance are present, constraining use of the flood plain by zoning will not generally lead to efficient outcomes. The model identifying conditions under which informed individuals have the incentives to make efficient decisions is powerful and directs attention toward more fruitful approaches.     

The distinction between affect and cognition

The distinction between affect and cognition was studied in a sample of early breast cancer patients. As assumed by Mckennell (1978) the change experienced led to a level of affect that was lower than the level of cognition and an increased discrepancy between these two components of quality of life within the first year after surgery. Cognition was stable over time, whereas affect improved (p<0.05). The relation between concommitants of disease and treatment and the types of affect-cognition combination were explored.     

Summative scales for measuring community satisfaction

Results of this study indicate that pen and paper questionnaire procedures can be successfully adapted to random digit dialing telephone interview methods. Further, the study produced a reliable instrument for measuring attitudes about how residents perceive their communities as a place to live.     

Maximum likelihood estimation in a model with interval data: a comment and extension

The purpose of this article is, first, to extend Poon et al. 's (1993) maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the correlation coefficient based on interval data to the regression case. Secondly, this paper shows how the traditional method of collecting interval data with the intervals chosen by the researcher can be easily modified to avoid the problems discussed by Poon et al. (1993). The MLE for this modification to the regression problem is presented. Finally, all the methods discussed in this paper are used to estimate the effects of grade point average and gender on student perceptions of the percentage of their classmates who have cheated on at least one exam in college.     

Development of a social monitoring system at the local level: An experiment in the Southern Region of the Democratic Republic of Sudan

Subjective indicators of life quality are used frequently in the planning and decision making process. The limitations inherent in the use of subjective indicators often go unnoticed among those most likely to use such data in the context of planned change. We direct attention to a potential source of error in subjective evaluations of community services and facilities. Specifically, we utilize repeated measures to test for response bias that results from placing items in alternative sections of the same survey instrument. Evidence concerning the hypothesized presence of systematic bias was mixed. When overall service evaluation items were embedded within a section devoted exclusively to that service, considerable systematic bias was observed. The findings indicate that the choice of question format depends upon the ultimate use to which the data will be put.     

Job Development in a Veterans Administration Hospital

This department provides a showcase for actual practices. Effective and ineffective procedures or techniques are displayed, as well as successful and unsuccessful programs or projects. Reports, not to exceed six typed, double-spaced pages, are to include a succinct, summary sentence of up to 30 words and are to be submitted in triplicate. Authors may wish to make longer reports available to interested readers.