I feel very valued compared to Australia.
HT: https://www.regjeringen.no/en/dokumenter/nou-2012-16/id700821/?docId=NOU201220120016000EN_EPIS&q=&navchap=1&ch=11
Official estimates for the value of a statistical life for road accidents in selected countries
24 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in transport economics Tags: value of life
The value of a statistical life through time in the USA
06 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics, technological progress, Thomas Schelling, transport economics Tags: Thomas Schelling, value of life
Thomas Schelling’s crucial contribution in 1968 at RAND was the notion of statistical lives—mortality risks—in contrast to valuing the lives of specific, identified individuals. His insight was that economists could evade the moral thicket of valuing life and instead focus on people’s willingness to trade-off money for small reductions in the risks they face.
In praise of traffic cops
05 May 2014 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, constitutional political economy, law and economics, transport economics Tags: crime and deterrence, James Buchanan, punishment dilemma
Due to budget cuts, 35% of Oregon State Highway Police were laid off. These mass layoffs dramatically reduced citations and resulted in a 10-20% increase in injuries and fatalities.
The strongest effects were under fair weather conditions outside of city-limits where state police employment levels were most relevant.
These results in DeAngelo and Hansen’s “Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2014 suggest that a highway fatality can be prevented with $309,000 of additional expenditures on traffic police.
A standard measure of the “value of a statistical life” is it is worth taking regulatory or law enforcement actions that reduce the risks of death when the costs of these actions are less than about $9 million per life saved.
Road safety is an area where James Buchanan’s punishment dilemma is strong:
For some laws or behavioural rules, the individual’s self-interest may override adherence [to the law], at least in certain circumstances.
Traffic violations offer a good example here.
Recognizing that he may himself violate traffic regulations on occasion, the individual may be reluctant to accept institutions that impose severe penalties, despite his preferences that all “others” than himself should be led to obey the general rules by sufficiently severe sanctions.
Just as the individual prefers that all others abide voluntarily by law while he remains free to violate it, so, too, he prefers that differentially severe punishment for law violation be meted out to others than himself.
Voters are less than keen to support strong penalties and convict when sitting on juries because of the fear that there but for the grace of god go I: that they would be in the dock at the receiving end of the heavy punishments.
If we commit to punish offenders and those who might commit offenses are deterred by this commitment to punish them, there would be fewer offenses. This also means doing the unpleasant things of meeting out these punishment when there are offenses by the undeterred:
- It is painful to subject others to punishment (“son, this is going to hurt me as much as it hurts you”); and
- It is even more painful to vote for penalties that may be imposed on yourself in person.
The initially low penalties for causing death by dangerous driving is an example of the punishment dilemma. These penalties only slowly increased over several decades as societal attitudes hardened.
@NZGreens @GreenpeaceNZ The scrapping of the trolley buses is great news – killer green technology alert
27 Apr 2014 1 Comment
in environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, transport economics Tags: expressive voting, killer green technologies, Wellington buses
The extra costs associated with the wire network and the difficulty of changing the buses’ routes were the main factors in this great decision.
Trolley buses cause backlogs when they brake down because they cannot overtake a broken-down bus. The trolley buses just stake-up behind the broken-down bus because they cannot overtake.
I have been trapped on a diesel express bus this way commuting to work many times. Central Wellington grinds to halt when one trolley bus breaks-down.
The 50-year-old power system would need upgrading soon costing “tens of millions of dollars,” and maintaining the 160 kilometres of wires and 15 substations costs $6m a year. The one-off cost of dismantling this network is cheaper than this!
Trolley bases are a killer green technology: drivers have been killed while standing on the road behind the bus reconnected the arms on the top of the bus to the overhead wires. These arms disconnect frequently, and have even hit people on the side of the road.
Wellington is earthquake prone. Having public transport run off a single electric power source connected to overhead wires is fool hardy.
I grew up in a small country town. I have none of the obsessions that big-city folk and the inner-city green voters, in particular, have with buses.
Congestion pricing – Swedish style
06 Apr 2014 Leave a comment
in politics, Public Choice, transport economics Tags: congestion charges
Sweden had a novel approach to introducing a road congestion charge. The congestion toll is put in place in 2006 for six months and then was lifted for another seven months.
A local referendum was then held on whether to bring the road tolls back or stay with the old traffic congestion. Road traffic passing in and out of the cordon in Stockholm Municipality reduced by between 20-25% during the period of the trial.
Neat.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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