The Mortality Costs of Regulatory Expenditures (Recent Economic Thought Series) [Hardcover]

W. Kip Viscusi (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0792394453 | ISBN-13: 978-0792394457 | Publication Date: May 31, 1994

Regulations to promote health and safety may be costly relative to the expected health and safety benefits, and may actually have negative effects on health and safety. These negative effects, or costs, may be due to reduced private spending on health and safety, moral hazard, or the creation of new risks. This volume considers the use of costs--benefit analysis, risk--risk analysis, and health--health analysis to determine the mortality cost associated with regulatory expenditures.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Springer (May 31, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792394453
• ISBN-13: 978-0792394457
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,178,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a useful if dry assessment of effects from regulation, October 25, 2000

By 

G W Thielman (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mortality Costs of Regulatory Expenditures (Recent Economic Thought Series) (Hardcover)

This collection of seven essays taken from the _J._of_Risk_and_Uncertainty_, defends the rather self-evident notion that increased regulation does not automatically benefit the public. Rather, the essays provide mortality comparisons, coupled with statistical data to evaluate the impact of regulatory distortion in the economy.

Some terminology in these essays could have benefited from clearer definitions. In fairness, the essays are gleaned from a specialized journal geared to a narrow audience. Nonetheless, a glossary to distinguish between risk-risk analysis, health-health analysis, benefit-cost analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis used to evaluate comparative risks would have been helpful. Even the Lutter/Morrall essay, which distinguished willingness-to-spend and willingness-to-pay, was replete with acronyms. Unexpectedly, the Viscusi/Zeckhauser essay used italicized characters for vectors and matrices rather than bold typeface (contrary to its usual representation in mathematics), but also presented what for me was a novel idea of comparing industries not solely on the fatalities resulting from their operations, but also on the fatalities related to input and output. For example, power generation may be relatively safe, but the coal burned must be provided from the mining industry, which is much more hazardous. The reader may develop an agreeable or skeptical reaction depending on the reasonableness of the data. The numbers, at first glance, do not strain credulity, although a more thorough understanding of sources for data might lend more confidence. However, I remain unconvinced of the economic comparison between injuries and fatalities, not because of the assertion that injuries have a greater aggregate economic effect than fatalities but because the societal concern that death may present a far more severe disruption in a household than a much larger number of recoverable minor injuries to many families. This represents a social decision to establish a higher priority on preventing accidental death than in avoiding morbidity based on acceptable norms established by informal consensus. That this may result in economic inefficiency does not seem sufficient reason to abandon such priorities.

The most rewarding essay for myself was by Keeney on mortality risks. Keeney illustrated the hazards to ordinary people (as opposed to bureaucrats who may benefit from increased regulation) of regulation-induced cost increases that may cause increased unemployment or reduced purchasing power. People must then prioritize purchases with fewer economic resources -- and so decisions such as driving on bald tires may increase risk as a consequence of having less money to purchase new ones. The hypothetical example presented might have been amusing but for the inanity of power seekers: a requirement that all individuals in automobiles wear a motorcycle-style helmet. A few might survive otherwise fatal accidents. Others might suffer collisions due to degraded hearing or vision while driving. The helmet industry would temporarily surge, at the expense of other industries that would suffer eroded customer purchasing power. Keeney pointed out that the consequences of an industry failing from regulatory burden are imposed on a small segment -- those employed in the industry. Thus socialization of risk may be reversed, allegedly benefiting many at the expense of a few: a risk allocation scheme by a tyranny of the majority. This disproportionate effect is further described in Portney/Stavins. In another essay, the claim that wealth and increased longevity being statistically linked may indicate a causal connection was asserted by Chapman/Hariharan.

While the prose seems dense at times, most of the arguments are competently presented. Knee-jerk big-government liberals unlikely to find much appealing in this slim volume, but CATO institute members may be attracted to the rather dry but salient arguments made therein.