David M. Hassenzahl

Estimating the effect of air quality: Spatial versus traditional hedonic price models

Empirical studies of hedonic housing prices show that the spatial maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method is preferable to the traditional ordinary least squares (OLS) hedonic method. Current computing capabilities restrict the MLE method to relatively small data sets. This paper circumvents this limitation by coupling the spatial MLE method with block bootstrapping, a form of Monte Carlo simulation that accounts for spatially dependent data. Blocks are created based on monthly and census tract information for resampling. For each month, we obtained 50 resamples of 750 observations from a data set of 15,727 residential properties to compare OLS and MLE empirical results. We find that the spatial MLE method consistently outperforms the traditional OLS method under these simulated conditions and that air quality matters irrespective of the method used.

Communicating sustainability: A content analysis of website communications in the United States

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the USA communicate sustainability through their websites. Specifically, the authors compare how and to what extent sustainability is communicated through an institution‐wide sustainability website versus operational and academic department websites. Design/methodology/approach – This paper describes the results of a content analysis of over 700 websites at IHEs in the USA which were selected in a stratified random sample. Each website was coded with responses entered into a data matrix. The data in the matrix were then evaluated and compared for important factors related to communicating about campus sustainability. Findings – Although there has been an increase in the number of commitments to sustainability by IHEs, at the time of this content analysis the commitment was not reflected on the websites of the IHEs sampled. Given the common use of websites at IHEs in the USA to communicate to large groups, colleges and universities should ensure that their websites reflect actual practice. Practical implications – The findings from this study may encourage IHEs in the USA to better communicate their practice related to sustainability. The implementation of the sustainability communication component in AASHE STARS may also play an important role in increased and better communication about campus sustainability. Originality/value – This study describes the first large‐scale content analysis of university websites evaluating sustainability characteristics. This paper gives a starting point and recommendations for IHEs who wish to enhance communication about sustainability through their websites.

The Effect of uncertainty on ‘risk rationalizing’ decisions

The forms and contexts in which risk analytical methods can provide useful inputs to policy decisions remains an open question. This paper assesses the role of uncertainty in cost‐ effectiveness estimation using the example of life‐saving interventions available to regulators in the United States, as calculated by Tengs et al. (Risk Analysis 15(3), 369–90, 1995). It identifies ‘equally plausible’ values for those interventions, based on alternative assumptions about costs and benefits. These alternative values suggest that in no case can credible point estimates indicate more than order of magnitude precision, and in the worst case, plausible point estimates range from infinite cost to net benefit for a single intervention. Some but not all of this uncertainty is irreducible. This suggests that decisions based on point‐estimate cost‐effectiveness calculations can give a false impression of rational, evidence‐based policy. In such cases, risk assessment based decisions are ‘systematically arbitrary.’ The analysis nonetheless suggests a role for cost effectiveness analysis in rejecting interventions that under all assumptions appear extremely costly, and promoting those that in all cases appear extremely inexpensive. Finally, it affirms that risk analysis is useful and appropriate as a tool for understanding complex problems, a role that could be undermined by excessive attention to calculating point estimates.

Uncertainty, Climate Change and Nuclear Power

Long time-horizon environmental risks with potential for global impacts have increased in visibility over the past several decades. Such issues as climate change, the nuclear fuel cycle, persistent synthetic chemicals, and stratospheric ozone depletion share some characteristics, including inter generational impacts, strongly decoupled incidence of risks and benefits, substantial decision stakes and extreme uncertainty. What is not well understood are the similarities and differences among sources and implications of uncertainty among these global environmental threats, especially those associate with current and future human behavior. This describes the uncertainties associated with managing two global concerns: the nuclear (fission) fuel cycle and anthropogenic climate change. It finds that the two issue share some common uncertainties, some highly differentiated uncertainties and some interdependent uncertainty. It argues that these uncertainties preclude simple conclusions about the tradeoffs between risks from anthropogenic climate change and those from nuclear power. It concludes that a framework that treats uncertainty as an aspect of management, not as an analytical challenge, will both improve options for effective policy making and provide direction for useful (from a policy perspective) future research.

Effects of Sex and Seating Arrangement on Selection of Leader

Effects of a persons sex and seating arrangement were tested with 310 participants (151 men and 159 women; M age = 20.0, SD = 3.3) from a large southwestern U.S. university who were asked to select a leader from among five persons depicted around a rectangular table. Participants chose a person shown seated at the head of the table as the leader of a group, regardless of that persons sex. This conflicts with prior research indicating gender bias against women as leaders.

Risk assessment, environmental/occupational

Over the past four decades, risk assessment has become a common tool to evaluate hazards to human health and the natural environment. Risk assessment typically involves estimating exposure to chemical (as well as biological and physical) hazards, and potency or effects of those hazards at those exposures. Methodological limitations have necessitated the development of assessment standards and assumptions, including assessment of exposure, dose–response relationships, uncertainty, and risk characterization. Toxicology, epidemiology, and theoretical modeling feature prominently. Risk assessment, while practiced by private and public agents around the world, remains controversial because of its reliance on expert inference and science-policy assumptions.

Chronic disease, homeland security, and sailing to where there be dragons [Guest editor's introduction]

The five papers in this special issue share the perspective that attitudes toward risk are strongly shaped by social context, and that understanding context can help us understand how risk decisions are made, and thereby how to make them better.

Outcomes, proxies and standards: performance-based environmental management approaches within arbitrary (political) boundaries

Trends toward devolution and performance based environmental regulation represent the simultaneous change of two major policy variables. This poses a major challenge to the policy maker and the policy analyst alike. Although there are strong arguments suggesting caution in implementing either of these changes, given that they are happening, there is a very real need to find state level environmental indicators that are credible, representative, independent and comparable. Finding and using such indicators will mean the difference between indeterminate change in and improvement of environmental regulation in the US under the National Environmental Performance Partnership System.