ABSTRACT
"This paper explores the relationship between the demographic characteristics of a community and the quantities of goods and services provided by its government, what we label the ¿public bundle'. We consider three models of public spending.... To evaluate these models of spending, we examine how county and state spending in the United States is affected by the age and racial composition, and the total size of a jurisdiction. We find that the estimated effects of demographic characteristics in the state equations are strikingly different from the estimated effects in the county equations. One possible explanation for these differences is that a jurisdiction's spending is affected differently by its own demographic characteristics and by the characteristics of the surrounding area. We conclude that community preference is important in explaining local spending, but that its determination is more complex than simple theory suggests."
Subject(s)
Age Distribution , Ethnicity , Financial Management , Geography , Health Expenditures , Health Services Accessibility , Models, Theoretical , Population Characteristics , Population Density , Residence Characteristics , Age Factors , Americas , Culture , Demography , Developed Countries , Economics , North America , Population , Population Dynamics , Research , United StatesABSTRACT
Advances in low-level risk detection threaten to engulf us with information. Regulators typically respond to each newly highlighted risk, whether painstakingly uncovered through scientific investigation or divulged with fanfare by the media, on an ad hoc basis. This response makes it hard to relate disparate risks to the overall risk level and impedes intelligent risk reduction, which must consider the costs and benefits involved. Efficient risk management requires decisions not only about what to regulate and how stringently, but also about the appropriate division of labor among the agents influencing risks. These agents include individuals, whose potential contributions too often are overlooked, corporations, and government.
Subject(s)
Decision Making , Risk Factors , Risk , Humans , Risk ManagementABSTRACT
An analysis of several agencies' risk assessments reveals that the present conservative approach through several stages of estimates of amounts of regulated substances, the exposure levels, and cancer risks often tends to distort the actual final regulation. Changes in this process are desirable and possible and would reduce overestimation of cancer risk assessments. These possible changes are discussed.
Subject(s)
Legislation, Drug/trends , Legislation, Food/trends , Animals , Benzene/analysis , Benzene/toxicity , Carcinogens/analysis , Carcinogens/toxicity , Humans , Lead/analysis , Lead/toxicity , Risk Factors , Species Specificity , United States , United States Environmental Protection AgencyABSTRACT
An extreme event, such as a nuclear accident, an earthquake, a cluster of adverse reactions to a particular drug, or excessive breakdowns of some class of equipment, frequently focuses attention for the first time on an important issue. By then, however, data on the incidence and magnitudes of relevant past events may be unavailable or too costly to reconstruct. Using a simple probability model, we derive methods for drawing statistical inferences based only on the magnitude of the first event noticed and the amount of exposure before this event occurred. We assume that an event is noticed only when its magnitude exceeds some threshold, and we develop methods of inference that are valid even when this threshold is unknown. One tempting but incorrect approach is to treat the magnitude of the observed event as if it were the threshold, forgetting that smaller magnitudes might have been noticed as well. The biases that arise when this mistake is made turn out to be substantial; risks can easily be overstated by a factor of 3.
