Download or read book Using Mandated Speed Limits to Measure the Value of a Statistical Life written by Orley Ashenfelter and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1987 the federal government permitted states to raise the speed limit on their rural interstate roads, but not on their urban interstate roads, from 55 mph to 65 mph for the first time in over a decade. Since the states that adopted the higher speed limit must have valued the travel hours they saved more than the fatalities incurred, this experiment provides a way to estimate an upper bound on the public's willingness to trade off wealth for a change in the probability of death. We find that the 65 mph limit increased speeds by approximately 3.5% (i.e., 2 mph), and increased fatality rates by roughly 35%. In the 21 states that raised the speed limit and for whom we have complete data, the estimates suggest that about 125,000 hours were saved per lost life. Valuing the time saved at the average hourly wage implies that adopting states were willing to accept risks that resulted in a savings of $1.54 million (1997$) per fatality, with a sampling error that might be around one-third this value. Since this estimate is an upper bound of the value of a statistical life (VSL), we set out a simple structural model that is identified by variability across the states in the probability of the adoption of increased speed limits to recover the VSL. The impirical implementation of this model produces estimates of the VSL that are generally smaller that $1.54 million, but these estimates are very imprecise.
Download or read book Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty written by Mark Machina and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2013-11-14 with total page 897 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need to understand the theories and applications of economic and finance risk has been clear to everyone since the financial crisis, and this collection of original essays proffers broad, high-level explanations of risk and uncertainty. The economics of risk and uncertainty is unlike most branches of economics in spanning from the individual decision-maker to the market (and indeed, social decisions), and ranging from purely theoretical analysis through individual experimentation, empirical analysis, and applied and policy decisions. It also has close and sometimes conflicting relationships with theoretical and applied statistics, and psychology. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of diverse aspects of this field, ranging from classical and foundational work through current developments. - Presents coherent summaries of risk and uncertainty that inform major areas in economics and finance - Divides coverage between theoretical, empirical, and experimental findings - Makes the economics of risk and uncertainty accessible to scholars in fields outside economics
Download or read book Economics by Example written by David A. Anderson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-11-03 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the principles of economics with enticing, real-life applications. The goal is to help readers understand how their lives are immersed in economics as they learn critical concepts.
Download or read book A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation written by Patricia A. Champ and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-08 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a practical book with clear descriptions of the most commonly used nonmarket methods. The first chapters of the book provide the context and theoretical foundation of nonmarket valuation along with a discussion of data collection procedures. The middle chapters describe the major stated- and revealed-preference valuation methods. For each method, the steps involved in implementation are laid out and carefully explained with supporting references from the published literature. The final chapters of the book examine the relevance of experimentation to economic valuation, the transfer of existing nonmarket values to new settings, and assessments of the reliability and validity of nonmarket values. The book is relevant to individuals in many professions at all career levels. Professionals in government agencies, attorneys involved with natural resource damage assessments, graduate students, and others will appreciate the thorough descriptions of how to design, implement, and analyze a nonmarket valuation study.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Panel Data written by Badi Hani Baltagi and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Panel Data examines new developments in the theory and applications of panel data. It includes basic topics like non-stationary panels, co-integration in panels, multifactor panel models, panel unit roots, measurement error in panels, incidental parameters and dynamic panels, spatial panels, nonparametric panel data, random coefficients, treatment effects, sample selection, count panel data, limited dependent variable panel models, unbalanced panel models with interactive effects and influential observations in panel data. Contributors to the Handbook explore applications of panel data to a wide range of topics in economics, including health, labor, marketing, trade, productivity, and macro applications in panels. This Handbook is an informative and comprehensive guide for both those who are relatively new to the field and for those wishing to extend their knowledge to the frontier. It is a trusted and definitive source on panel data, having been edited by Professor Badi Baltagi-widely recognized as one of the foremost econometricians in the area of panel data econometrics. Professor Baltagi has successfully recruited an all-star cast of experts for each of the well-chosen topics in the Handbook.
Download or read book Estimating the Value of a Statistical Life written by Orley Ashenfelter and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper we show that omitted variables and publication bias lead to severely biased estimates of the value of a statistical life. Although our empirical results are obtained in the context of a study of choices about road safety, we suspect that the same issues plague the estimation of monetary trade-offs regarding safety in other contexts.
Download or read book 50th Celebratory Volume written by Solomon W. Polachek and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-23 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 50th Celebratory Research in Labor Economics volume contains ten original and innovative articles each written by stellar senior scholars in labor economics addressing aspects of worker well-being.
Download or read book How Much is Clean Air Worth written by Ari Rabl and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-10 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive reference on the main methodologies used to calculate the benefits of pollution control, with worked examples.
Download or read book Wait written by Frank Partnoy and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-06-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do these scenarios have in common: a professional tennis player returning a serve, a woman evaluating a first date across the table, a naval officer assessing a threat to his ship, and a comedian about to reveal a punch line? In this counterintuitive and insightful work, author Frank Partnoy weaves together findings from hundreds of scientific studies and interviews with wide-ranging experts to craft a picture of effective decision-making that runs counter to our brutally fast-paced world. Even as technology exerts new pressures to speed up our lives, it turns out that the choices we make -- unconsciously and consciously, in time frames varying from milliseconds to years -- benefit profoundly from delay. As this winning and provocative book reveals, taking control of time and slowing down our responses yields better results in almost every arena of life -- even when time seems to be of the essence. The procrastinator in all of us will delight in Partnoy's accounts of celebrity "delay specialists," from Warren Buffett to Chris Evert to Steve Kroft, underscoring the myriad ways in which delaying our reactions to everyday choices -- large and small -- can improve the quality of our lives.
Download or read book The Cost Benefit Revolution written by Cass R. Sunstein and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why policies should be based on careful consideration of their costs and benefits rather than on intuition, popular opinion, interest groups, and anecdotes. Opinions on government policies vary widely. Some people feel passionately about the child obesity epidemic and support government regulation of sugary drinks. Others argue that people should be able to eat and drink whatever they like. Some people are alarmed about climate change and favor aggressive government intervention. Others don't feel the need for any sort of climate regulation. In The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Cass Sunstein argues our major disagreements really involve facts, not values. It follows that government policy should not be based on public opinion, intuitions, or pressure from interest groups, but on numbers—meaning careful consideration of costs and benefits. Will a policy save one life, or one thousand lives? Will it impose costs on consumers, and if so, will the costs be high or negligible? Will it hurt workers and small businesses, and, if so, precisely how much? As the Obama administration's “regulatory czar,” Sunstein knows his subject in both theory and practice. Drawing on behavioral economics and his well-known emphasis on “nudging,” he celebrates the cost-benefit revolution in policy making, tracing its defining moments in the Reagan, Clinton, and Obama administrations (and pondering its uncertain future in the Trump administration). He acknowledges that public officials often lack information about costs and benefits, and outlines state-of-the-art techniques for acquiring that information. Policies should make people's lives better. Quantitative cost-benefit analysis, Sunstein argues, is the best available method for making this happen—even if, in the future, new measures of human well-being, also explored in this book, may be better still.
Download or read book The value of mortality risk reductions in Delhi India written by Soma Bhattacharya and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The authors interviewed commuters in Delhi, India, asking them to report their willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce their risk of dying in road traffic accidents in each of three scenarios that mirror the circumstances under which the majority of the road fatalities in Delhi occur. The WTP responses are internally valid, in the sense that WTP increases with the size of the risk reduction, income, and exposure to road traffic risks, as measured by length of commute and whether the respondent drives a two-wheeler. As a result, the "value of a statistical life" (VSL) is individuated-that is, it varies across groups of beneficiaries. For the most likely beneficiaries of road safety programs-the most highly exposed individuals-the VSL is about 150,000 PPP$. "--World Bank web site.
Download or read book Catastrophe written by Richard A. Posner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catastrophic risks are much greater than is commonly appreciated. Collision with an asteroid, runaway global warming, voraciously replicating nanomachines, a pandemic of gene-spliced smallpox launched by bioterrorists, and a world-ending accident in a high-energy particle accelerator, are among the possible extinction events that are sufficiently likely to warrant careful study. How should we respond to events that, for a variety of psychological and cultural reasons, we find it hard to wrap our minds around? Posner argues that realism about science and scientists, innovative applications of cost-benefit analysis, a scientifically literate legal profession, unprecedented international cooperation, and a pragmatic attitude toward civil liberties are among the keys to coping effectively with the catastrophic risks.
Download or read book EBOOK LABOR ECONOMICS written by BORJAS and published by McGraw Hill. This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EBOOK: LABOR ECONOMICS
Download or read book How Does the Impact of an HIV AIDS Information Campaign Vary with Educational Attainment written by Damien de Walque and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book SARS in Context written by Jacalyn Duffin and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2006-10-12 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former Ontario Chief Coroner James Young and infectious disease expert Dick Zoutman recount their efforts to contain the mysterious new disease. In answer to questions about "lessons from the past," several distinguished historians of epidemics examine how their knowledge of responses to older plagues influenced their perception of SARS. They also reflect on how the advent of SARS alters their views of the past. Finally, policy experts comment on possible changes to health care that the SARS experience suggests should be made.
Download or read book The Price of Everything written by Eduardo Porter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everything has a price, but it isn't always obvious what that price is. Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire cheap illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn, and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country. And citizens of the industrialized West pay hundreds of dollars a year in taxes or cash for someone to cart away trash that would be a valuable commodity in poorer parts of the world. The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice that we make, whether we're deciding to have a baby, drive a car, or buy a book. We often fail to appreciate just how critical prices are as a motivating force shaping our lives. But their power becomes clear when distorted prices steer our decisions the wrong way. Eduardo Porter uncovers the true story behind the prices we pay and reveals what those prices are actually telling us. He takes us on a global economic adventure, from comparing the relative price of a vote in corrupt São Tomé and in the ostensibly uncorrupt United States, to assessing the cost of happiness in Bhutan, to deducing the dollar value we assign to human life. His unique approach helps explain: * Why polygamous societies actually place a higher value on women than monogamous ones. * Why someone may find more value in a $14 million license plate than the standard issue, $95 one. * Why some government agencies believe one year of life for a senior citizen is four times more valuable than that of a younger person. Porter weaves together the constant-and often unconscious-cost and value assessments we all make every day. While exploring the fascinating story behind the price of everything from marriage and death to mattresses and horsemeat, Porter draws unexpected connections that bridge a wide range of disciplines and cultures. The result is a cogent and insightful narrative about how the world really works. Watch a Video
Download or read book Medical Decision Making written by Stefan Felder and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-07-22 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook offers a comprehensive theory of medical decision making under uncertainty, combining informative test theory with the expected utility hypothesis. The book shows how the parameters of Bayes’ theorem can be combined with a value function of health states to arrive at informed test and treatment decisions. The authors distinguish between risk neutral, risk averse and prudent decision makers and demonstrate the effects of risk preferences on physicians’ decisions. They analyze individual tests, multiple tests and endogenous tests where the test result is determined by the decision maker. Finally, the topic is examined in the context of health economics by introducing a trade-off between enjoying health and consuming other goods, so that the extent of treatment and thus the potential improvement in the patient’s health become endogenous.
