The Complex Politics of Catastrophe Economics

Roger Noll

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1996, vol. 12, issue 2-3, 46 pages

Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to explore the implications for public policy of the assumption that policy makers exhibit the same cognitive and perceptual problems as other citizens regarding catastrophic events. The key conclusion is that the same factors that cause citizens to behave inefficiently in preparing for and responding to disasters also will cause inefficiencies in policies concerning catastrophic events. Among the more important expected pathologies of disaster policies are: (1) a failure to balance benefits and costs at the margin for different types of disasters due to cognitive pathologies such as availability and overconfidence; (2) a tendency for policy to underinvest in protection and overinvest in response; and (3) a skepticism for policies based on sound insurance principles for spreading costs and assessing claims. Copyright 1996 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:12:y:1996:i:2-3:p:141-46

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ry/journal/11166/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty is currently edited by W. Kip Viscusi

More articles in Journal of Risk and Uncertainty from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().