Risk Assessment Research: Only the Beginning

[This editorial is an essentially unedited version of testimony I presented to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (Subcommittee on Technology, Environment, and Aviation) on November 16, 1993. The hearing marked the release of an Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) report entitled "Researching Health Risks," for which I was part of an advisory panel (along with Curtis Travis and a dozen other experts in risk assessment). The title of my testimony foreshadowed the dual message I hoped to convey: that more research to improve risk assessment is sorely needed, but that we ought not let that need blind us to other deficiencies in risk-based decision-making that may deserve equal or greater attention.]     

Time to reconceptualize ‘green technology’ in the context of globalization and international relations

The focus on time is used to demonstrate that Newtonian conceptions of reality underpin the push for ‘green technology’ and its associated international relations. It brings to the surface the rationale of this technology and shows its limits and future potential by exploring underlying assumptions and principles: ‘green technology’, it is argued, is not achievable on those terms and such an approach to environmental problems is unlikely to lead to relevant action and suitable solutions. It is not simply a matter of finding the ‘right technical, economic and political solutions but, crucially, about reconceptualization and the restructuring of knowledge. Thus, conceptual revision is necessary if appropriate responses are to be found to the hazards of the industrial way of life; focus on the temporal dimension of technology and globalized political processes offers a first point of departure from the Newtonian tradition.     

An Examination of the Asymmetric Effects of Money Supply Shocks in the Pre–World War I and Interwar Periods

We test whether monetary shocks had asymmetric output effects before World War II. Ball and Mankiw (1994) show that expectations of persistent inflation under fiat money can explain why negative monetary shocks had larger effects than positive shocks after World War II. Consistent with this explanation, we find such asymmetry in the interwar period following the abandonment of the gold standard and before it, when agents arguably anticipated this development. We find no monetary asymmetry before World War I, which is consistent with Ball and Mankiw (1994), because under a credible gold standard, agents do not expect persistent inflation.     

Marginality and its directions

The concept of marginality articulated by Robert Park in Migration and the Marginal Man is reconstructed in order to yield a more complex general theory of marginality. Park believed marginality results when individuals in migrant groups are barred by prejudice from complete acceptance into a dominant culture. Here it is argued that the marginal person, having taken on elements of the dominant culture, also is unable to return unchanged to his or her original group. Thus, the marginal person is caught in a structure of double ambivalence: unable either to leave or to return to the original group; unable either to merge with the new group or to slough it off. Marginal persons typically react to this field of cross-cutting pressures in four directions, here termed assimilation, return, poise, and transcendence. German Jewry of the Wilhelmine era serves as a test case of the general theory of marginality. Application of the theory resolves some of the salient difficulties attending efforts to understand postemancipation German Jewry.     

Forecasting service needs for the year 2000: implications for state government

This article is based upon research in Florida of the older population and its projected need for services. It includes discussion of the method and findings of the study. The focus, however, is on the policy implications for state government that emerged from the research. The data has enabled Florida to examine the experience of its own community care programs in order to help develop a strategic plan for expanding resources, reforming its organization, and improving its performance. In addition to funding and organization of the state's long-term care system, the issue of targeting limited community resources to severely frail elders emerged as a major concern of this research. Although the various states differ widely in history, demographics, and structure, these policy issues should be of immediate concern to each of them.     

Asymptotically Uniform Tests After Consistent Model Selection in the Linear Regression Model

Abstract

This article specializes the critical value (CV) methods that are based upon (refinements of) Bonferroni bounds, introduced by McCloskey to a problem of inference after consistent model selection in a general linear regression model. The post-selection problem is formulated to mimic common empirical practice and is applicable to both cross-sectional and time series contexts. We provide algorithms for constructing the CVs in this setting and establish uniform asymptotic size results for the resulting tests. The practical implementation of the CVs is illustrated in an empirical application to the effect of classroom size on test scores.