Information Effects on Lay Tradeoffs Between National Regulatory Costs and Benefits

Details

• Personal Author:
  Finkel AM ; Johnson BB
• Description:
  A novel stated-preference "macro-risk" approach introduced to estimate the life-prolonging benefits of proposed environmental, health, and safety regulations may answer questions unasked or wrongly answered by conventional revealed-preference (e.g., "wage premiums" for high occupational risks) and stated-preference methods (e.g., willingness to pay for tiny reductions in one's own premature death risk). This new approach asks laypeople to appraise directly their preferred tradeoffs between national regulatory costs and lives prolonged nationwide (regulatory benefits). However, this method may suffer from incomplete lay understanding of national-scale consequences (e.g., billions of dollars in regulatory costs; hundreds of lives prolonged) or tradeoffs (e.g., what are lives prolonged worth?). Here we (1) tested effects of numerical contextual examples to ground each hypothetical regulatory tradeoff, and (2) explored why some people implicitly offer "implausible" values (< $10,000 or > $1 billion) for the social benefit of prolonging one life. In Study 1 (n = 356), after testing their separate effects, we combined three contextual-information aids: (1) comparing hypothetical regulatory costs and benefits to real-life higher and lower values; (2) reframing large numbers into smaller, more familiar terms; and (3) framing regulatory costs as having diffuse versus concentrated impacts. Information increased social benefits values on average (from $4.5 million to $13.8 million). Study 2 (n = 402) found that the most common explanations for "implausible" values included inattention, strong attitudes about regulation, and problems translating values into responses. We discuss implications for this novel stated-preferences method, and for comparing it to micro-risk methods. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Risk Assessment Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Calibration Cost-benefit Analysis Cost Analyses Costs National Tradeoffs Regulations Regulatory Activities Risk Analysis Stated Preferences Valuation
• ISSN:
  0272-4332
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Michigan ; Oregon ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  42
• Issue:
  12
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20070734
• Citation:
  Risk Anal 2022 Dec; 42(12):2620-2638
• Contact Point Address:
  Branden B. Johnson, Senior Research Scientist, Decision Research, P.O. Box 72538, Springfield, OR 97475 USA
• Email:
  branden@decisionresearch.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2023
• Performing Organization:
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Risk Analysis
• End Date:
  20280630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:33f0b6c286ecd3735c4f04e8feb2c71135f72f3ff88f8f6cb6f1f9d65d907ac8a2d67ab8042a05fabc0230e83c8fafb65c20f9bac77bd9c600524905e9eb506f
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/208904/cdc_208904_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 227.67 KB ]