Abortion demand

Abortion may be characterized as fertility control. Costs and benefits of an additional child are weighed over time. If costs exceed benefits, fertility control is employed. An economic model of abortion demand is developed that incorporates price, income, demographic factors (tastes), and public policy issues such as abortion funding. A key finding is that state abortion funding, substituted for federal funding under Medicaid as a result of the Hyde Amendments, may be important to abortion demand but it is difficult to differentiate its effect from other effects at the state level with an econometric model.     

More evidence on smoke detector effectiveness and the value of saving a life

Economic models of the fire fatality rate give estimates of smoke detector effectiveness. These estimates are much smaller than those generally accepted. Reasonable interpretation of these estimates, combined with the cost of a smoke detector and the risk of a fire death, places the smoke detector-based value of life saving in a range of $ 1.41 to $ 2.487 million 1986 dollars. The more generally accepted results of other studies of the value of life saving fall in a range of $ 1.6 to $ 8.5 million 1986 dollars. Smoke detector market data, along with effectiveness estimates from economic models, may provide a unique opportunity to estimate the value of life saving.Partial funding for this project was made available by the Kellogg Foundation through a grant to the Missouri Youth Initiative Program. An earlier version of this paper was presented as a seminar paper at the Center for Fire Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce, Gaithersburg, Maryland, May 8, 1990. Results were also reported at the session on Value of Life Saving: Narrowing the Range, Southern Economic Association, November 1990, New Orleans.     

Do front-seat belt laws put rear-seat passengers at risk?

Cross-sectional economic models of traffic fatalities are estimated to determine the effectiveness of state statutes that require motor vehicle occupants to use seat belts. The estimates provide some support for the theory of offsetting consumer behavior. In the case of primary enforcement front-seat belt laws, models suggest that rear-seat passengers and nonoccupants may be killed as a result of more dangerous driving by belted drivers. In the case of secondary enforcement front-seat belt laws, there is no favorable or unfavorable effect that is statistically significant. Models that employ self-reported seat belt usage rates from the Centers for Disease Control suggest an offsetting effect for rear-seat passengers and non-occupants as in the case of the models for primary seat belt laws.

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IMPACT OF THE NEW ZEALAND SEAT BELT LAW

Offsetting consumer behavior may have reduced the effectiveness of a mandatory seat belt law in reducing fatalities in New Zealand. It appears that the favorable effect on automobile occupants may be offset partially, or in some models perhaps completely, by deaths among cyclists and pedestrians that may be caused by more dangerous driving by drivers who feel safer. Furthermore, the improvement in safety found for occupants is smaller than generally reported in the literature. A caveat is that speed may be endogenous for some models.