Risk Analysis: Celebrating the Accomplishments and Embracing Ongoing Challenges

As part of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Society for Risk Analysis and Risk Analysis: An International Journal, this essay reviews the 10 most important accomplishments of risk analysis from 1980 to 2010, outlines major accomplishments in three major categories from 2011 to 2019, discusses how editors circulate authors’ accomplishments, and proposes 10 major risk-related challenges for 2020–2030. Authors conclude that the next decade will severely test the field of risk analysis.     

Conditional time-dependent nonparametric estimators with an application to healthcare production function

ABSTRACT

By using the probabilistic framework of production efficiency, the paper develops time-dependent conditional efficiency estimators performing a non-parametric frontier analysis. Specifically, by applying both full and quantile (robust) time-dependent conditional estimators, it models the dynamic effect of health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up levels. The results from the application reveal that the effect of per capita health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up is nonlinear and is subject to countries’ specific income levels.     

Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling of Post-Earthquake Ignition Probabilities Considering Inter-Earthquake Heterogeneity

Post-earthquake fires are high-consequence events with extensive damage potential. They are also low-frequency events, so their nature remains underinvestigated. One difficulty in modeling post-earthquake ignition probabilities is reducing the model uncertainty attributed to the scarce source data. The data scarcity problem has been resolved by pooling the data indiscriminately collected from multiple earthquakes. However, this approach neglects the inter-earthquake heterogeneity in the regional and seasonal characteristics, which is indispensable for risk assessment of future post-earthquake fires. Thus, the present study analyzes the post-earthquake ignition probabilities of five major earthquakes in Japan from 1995 to 2016 (1995 Kobe, 2003 Tokachi-oki, 2004 Niigata–Chuetsu, 2011 Tohoku, and 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes) by a hierarchical Bayesian approach. As the ignition causes of earthquakes share a certain commonality, common prior distributions were assigned to the parameters, and samples were drawn from the target posterior distribution of the parameters by a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the hierarchical model were comparatively analyzed with those of pooled and independent models. Although the pooled and hierarchical models were both robust in comparison with the independent model, the pooled model underestimated the ignition probabilities of earthquakes with few data samples. Among the tested models, the hierarchical model was least affected by the source-to-source variability in the data. The heterogeneity of post-earthquake ignitions with different regional and seasonal characteristics has long been desired in the modeling of post-earthquake ignition probabilities but has not been properly considered in the existing approaches. The presented hierarchical Bayesian approach provides a systematic and rational framework to effectively cope with this problem, which consequently enhances the statistical reliability and stability of estimating post-earthquake ignition probabilities.     

Beyond Piketty: A new perspective on poverty and inequality in India

The socio-economic literature has focused much on how overall inequality in income distribution (frequently measured by the Gini coefficient) undermines the “trickle down” effect. In other words, the higher the inequality in the income distribution, the lower is the growth elasticity of poverty. However, with the publication of Piketty’s magnum opus (2014), and a subsequent study by Chancel and Piketty (2017) of evolution of income inequality in India since 1922, the focus has shifted to the income disparity between the richest 1% (or 0.01%) and the bottom 50%. Their central argument is that the rapid growth of income at the top end of millionaires and billionaires is a by-product of growth. The present study extends this argument by linking it to poverty indices in India. Based on the India Human Development Survey 2005–12 – a nationwide panel survey-we examine the links between poverty and income inequality, especially in the upper tail relative to the bottom 50%, state affluence (measured in per capita income) and their interaction or their joint effect. Another feature of our research is that we analyse their effects on the FGT class of poverty indices. The results are similar in as much as direction of association is concerned but the elasticities vary with the poverty index. The growth elasticities are negative and significant for all poverty indices. In all three cases, the disparity between the income share of the top 1% and share of the bottom 50% is associated with greater poverty. These elasticities are much higher than the (absolute) income elasticities except in the case of the poverty gap. The largest increase occurs in the poverty gap squared – a 1% greater income disparity is associated with a 1.24% higher value of this index. Thus the consequences of even a small increase in the income disparity are alarming for the poorest.     

Linguists and other animals

Book reviewed in this article:
Joan Dunayer, Animal Equality: Language and Liberation     

民族文化、阶级和性别的阅读--中国大陆彝族女商业性性服务者个案研究

文章通过对一位彝族妇女的个案分析,揭示了文化、阶级、性别是如何纠合在一起,作为一种强大的推拉力,迫使一些妇女进入和滞留于商业性性交易中的。     

20世纪上半叶制约中国社会发展的决定性因素

20世纪上半叶在以战争与革命为主题的时代背景下 ,外国帝国主义的侵略和俄国十月革命对中国社会发展产生了重大影响。半殖民地半封建的社会形态、错综复杂的阶级结构和阶级关系、2 0世纪中国的两大历史主题等也是制约中国社会发展的重要因素。正是由于对这四个因素的正确认识和准确把握 ,中华民族实现了 2 0世纪上半叶中国社会的巨大变革     

身体素质与跳远技术教学模型建立初探

用数学量化的方法 ,分析处理有关数据 ,建构模型。利用模型指导教师在跳远教学中如何处理素质与技术的关系 ,从而使跳远教学具有较科学、量化的评价体系和理论依据。     

反思批判与价值彰显——卢卡奇的“西方马克思主义”理论主题及其价值向度

卢卡奇的《历史和阶级意识》是在历史哲学语境条件下形成的一套反思性的批判话语,马克思主义与时代变革的关系是其话语活动的直接动因,总体性辩证法理论、物化理论和阶级意识理论是这种反思的核心主题,而意识决定历史是其反思的内在理念和逻辑归宿,这一点鲜明地凸现出卢卡奇的“西方马克思主义”的理论旨趣和价值向度。