Applications of willingness to pay (WTP) have shown the difficultly to discriminate between various options. This reflects the problem of embedding in both its specific sense, of options being nested within one another, and its more-general sense, whereby respondents cannot discriminate between...

This paper examines public valuations of mortality risk reductions. We set up a theoretical framework that allows for altruistic preferences, and subsequently test theoretical predictions through the design of a discrete choice experiment. By varying the tax scenario (uniform versus individual...

Applications using the standard willingness to pay (WTP) approach (where a respondent is asked his/her WTP for each option) have brought to light inherent difficulties in terms of discriminating between various options. Although an incremental WTP approach (where a less preferred option is used...

The estimates used to value mortality risk reductions are a major determinant of the benefits of many public health and environmental policies. These estimates (typically expressed as the value per statistical life, VSL) describe the willingness of those affected by a policy to exchange their...

The COVID-19 pandemic and the strong social distancing measures adopted by governments around the world provide an ideal scenario to evaluate the trade-off between lives saved and morbidity avoided on the one hand and reduced economic resources on the other. We adapt the standard model of...

The recognition that environmental hazards can affect children differently and more severely than adults has provoked growing concern in industrialized nations about the impact of environmental pollution on children’s health. In this paper, commissioned by the OECD, we are charged with...

Sandy struck a strategically important city in a strategically important country within days of a strategically important election. Climate justice has many synergistic and sometimes competing dimensions. Irrespective of the degree to which climate change contributes to any given weather event,...

Hydraulic fracturing has been a game changer for the energy field, bringing to mind the “nothing in excess” carving at Delphi. Whether heeding ancient oracles or cutting-edge principles of calibration, I argue that dynamic governance innovation can facilitate climate-energy-water balancing...

Reasonable and equitable water resource decision-making is at the core of good governance around the world. Sustained water collaboration is an antidote to foreign relations disintegration. Lack of water quality and quantity policies can lead to water insecurity for everyone, yet bureaucratic...

The FDA has been charged by the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) with improving food safety in the United States. The four large regulations analyzed in this paper do not appear able to accomplish that mission. Part of the reason for this failure is that Congress has narrowly prescribed...