Deliberation: Integrating Analytical Results into Environmental Decisions Involving Multiple Stakeholders

The National Research Council has recommended the use of an analytic/deliberative decision making process in environmental restoration decisions that involve multiple stakeholders. This work investigates the use of the results of risk assessment and multiattribute utility analysis (the "analysis") in guiding the deliberation. These results include the ranking of proposed remedial action alternatives according to each stakeholder's preferences, as well as the identification of the major reasons for these rankings. The stakeholder preferences are over a number of performance measures that include the traditional risk assessment metrics, e.g., individual worker risk, as well as programmatic, cultural, and cost-related impacts. Based on these results, a number of proposals are prepared for consideration by the stakeholders during the deliberation. These proposals are the starting point for the formulation of actual recommendations by the group. In our case study, these recommendations included new remedial action alternatives that were created by the stakeholders after an extensive discussion of the detailed analytical results.     

Evaluating second-order probability judgments with strictly proper scoring rules

Empirical studies have demonstrated that uncertainty about event probabilities, also known as ambiguity or second-order uncertainty, can affect decision makers choice preferences. Despite the importance of second-order uncertainty in decision making, almost no effort has been directed towards the development of methods that evaluate the accuracy of second-order probabilities. In this paper, we describe conditions under which strictly proper scoring rules can be used to assess the accuracy of second-order probability judgments. We investigate the effectiveness of using a particular strictly proper scoring rule the ranked probability score - to discourage biased assessments of second-order uncertainty.     

Max Weber,critical theory,and the administered world

The sociological perspectives of Max Weber and the Frankfurt School have been viewed as polarities in much of the recent literature. The Frankfurt sociologists were advocates of a neo-Marxism that stressed dialectical reasoning and rejected the notion of value-neutrality. Weber adhered to the canons of causal logic and cultivated the ideal of objectivity in social research. Notwithstanding these theoretical and methodological differences, Weber and the advocates of critical theory arrived at surprisingly similar conclusions about the fate of the modern world. Weber saw the advent of a bureaucratic iron cage which would effectively negate the role of the individual, while the Frankfurt sociologists posited the onset of an administered world in which human activity would be smothered in an ever-expanding network of management and control. Given these commonalities, a revision of the standard evaluation of Weber and critical theory is suggested.     

Collaboration in sociology and other scientific disciplines: A comparative trend analysis of scholarship in the social, physical, and mathematical sciences

This inquiry examines comparative trends in collaboration among scholars, both over several decades and for several scientific disciplines. Findings suggest that in sociology specifically and science generally the trend is toward greater collaborative scholarship. At the turn of the twentieth century, better than 90 percent of the articles appearing in major periodicals in physics, biochemistry, biology, and chemistry were sole authored. Today, over 95 percent of such articles are collaboratively published. Disciplines affiliated with the social and mathematical sciences have experienced similar monotonic increases in collaborative activity, albeit, at a slower rate. A discussion of plausible explanations is offered for this observed growth in scientific collaboration.     

By our bootstraps: Origins and effects of the high-wage doctrine and the minimum wage

Conclusion  Although the high-wage doctrine — the belief that the level of aggregate demand is determined by the level of wage rates — is most often associated with the Great Depression, the doctrine’s effects on wage policy go back at least two decades further. Rather than having been a product of desperate times, the doctrine gained wide acceptance during the prosperous 1920s as businessmen and economists, citing the success of Henry Ford's continuing high-wage policies, and the (supposedly counterproductive) wage deflation that had marked the steep depression of 1920-21, applied the doctrine's demand-enhancing logic to push for an economy-wide minimum wage. The authors thank Fred Bateman, Don Bellante, Roger Garrison, Peter Klein, and Anthony Patrick O’Brien for thoughtful comments and suggestions.     

Cancer premiums and latency effects: A risk tradeoff approach for valuing reductions in fatal cancer risks

Many studies estimate individuals’ values for avoiding fatality risks; however, most value-of-statistical-life studies focus on accident-related deaths. Consequently, little is known about preferences for avoiding other fatal risks, such as cancer. Cancer may engender strong feelings of dread, leading to a “cancer premium,” but cancer latency periods may have the opposite effect. Using a national survey, we elicit relative preferences for avoiding fatal cancer and auto-accident risks. We find strong preferences for avoiding cancer risks. With a 5-year latency, they are valued roughly three times greater than immediate accident risks, declining to 50% greater for a 25-year latency.

Posterior Odds with a Generalized Hyper-g-Prior

Averaged orthogonal rotations of Zellner's g-prior yield general, interpretable, closed form Bayes factors for the normal linear model variable selection problem. Coupled with a model space prior that balances the weight between the identifiable and the unidentifiable models, limiting forms for the posterior odds ratios are seen to yield new expressions for high dimensional model choice.