Technical Note—Equity and Public Risk: Some Empirical Results

M. Hammerton, M. W. Jones-Lee and V. Abbott
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M. Hammerton: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England
M. W. Jones-Lee: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England
V. Abbott: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England

Operations Research, 1982, vol. 30, issue 1, 203-207

Abstract: Is the prospect of the certain loss of one (as yet unidentified) life in a population of N people equivalent to the exposure of the N people to independent risks of death of 1/ N each? In a recent issue of this journal Keeney argued that this would, in general, not be the case and showed that a preference for a more equitable distribution of physical risk implies a preference for the independent risks rather than the certain loss of unidentified life, while “catastrophe aversion” implies the reverse. In this note we report empirical results which suggest that a majority of individuals display “catastrophe aversion” rather than “equity proneness,” at least for the kind of alternatives described above.

Keywords: 855; attitudes; to; physical; risk; and; disutility; of; lives; lost (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1982
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