The Problem of Prevention

Juan Dubra () and Jean-Pierre Benoit

No 1111, Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers from Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo.

Abstract: Many disasters are foreshadowed by insuficient preventive care. In this paper, we argue that there is a true problem of prevention, in that insu¢ cient care is often the result of rational calculations on the part of agents. We identify two factors that lead to dubious e¤orts in care. First, when objective risks of a disaster are poorly understood, positive experiences may lead to an underestimation of these risks and a corresponding underinvestment in prevention. Second, redundancies designed for safety may lead agents to reduce their care, resulting in a decrease in safety under certain conditions. We also analyze the use of checklists in accident prevention

Keywords: Overconfidence; Better than Average; Experimental Economics; Irrationality; Signalling Models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D12 D82 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www2.um.edu.uy/fcee_papers/2011/working_paper_um_cee_2011_11.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The problem of prevention (2007)
Working Paper: The Problem of Prevention (2006)
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:mnt:wpaper:1111

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers from Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mathias Ribeiro ().