Fred Englander

Economic dimensions of slip and fall injuries

This paper provides an update of annual economic costs imposed by fall injuries. Such costs include medical, rehabilitation, hospital costs, and the costs of morbidity and mortality. These costs are projected to the year 2020, based on changing demographic trends. The market for slip and fall injury prevention is analyzed for the elderly and for those in the workplace-two high risk groups. Questions as to whether this market operates in a socially desirable manner, or whether government intervention is justified on efficiency grounds, are considered. Essential aspects of cost-benefit analysis are reviewed in the context of a prospective evaluation of interventions to prevent slip and fall injuries. THe cost-benefit analysis framework is applied to part of the FICSIT experiment (a major intervention to reduce falls among the elderly) and to recent revisions in Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations directed at reducing workplace falls.

Internet Use among College Students: Tool or Toy?.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the grade performance of 128 students in an introductory micro‐economics course and the average number of hours per week these students report spending on the Internet. The literature review offers a priori arguments supporting both positive and negative relationships. However, the previous literature does not offer any empirical analysis of the link between the actual grade performance of college students and the number of hours that they spent online. The study finds a negative and statistically significant impact of Internet hours on grade performance, suggesting that the distractive dimensions of Internet use outweigh the productive dimensions.

Ethical, Legal and Economic Aspects of Employer Monitoring of Employee Electronic Mail

This paper examines ethical, legal and economic dimensions of the decision facing employers regarding whether it is appropriate to monitor the electronic mail (e-mail) communications of its employees. We review the question of whether such monitoring is lawful. Recent e-mail monitoring cases are viewed as a progression from cases involving more established technologies (i.e., phone calls, internal memoranda, faxes and voice mail).The central focus of the paper is on the extent to which employer monitoring of employee e-mail presents a structure of costs and benefits to the employer which are unlikely to make such a practice profitable or practical to the employer. The practice of employer monitoring to detect illicit employee behavior (e.g., fraud, harassment of fellow employees, industrial espionage) is considered.It is argued that not only does such monitoring behavior fall short of the standard imposed by Kants categorical imperative for ethical behavior, monitoring also fails to meet Aristotles ethical standard of practical wisdom. Other ethical aspects of employer monitoring are considered.

Comment on "The Impact of Online Assessment on Grades in Community College Distance Education Mathematics Courses" by Ronald W. Yates and Brian Beaudrie

Abstract This article comments on an earlier article by professors Yates and Beaudrie (2009)who examined whether online assessment facilitates student cheating and found no evidence of such a greater prevalence of cheating. Professors Yates and Beaudrie are commended for their contribution to this increasingly important area of research. The analysis indicates that professor Yates and Beaudries (2009) conclusion may have been influenced by (1) a failure to adequately account for student ability, leading to potential selection bias; (2) their use of course grades, rather than exam grades as the key measure of student performance; (3) possible differences in precautions that instructors may have deployed in the unproctored sections in order to discourage cheating; and (4) the evolution of distance learning resources and methods over their long period of study.

The Impact of Program and Labor Market Incentives on Applications for Welfare Appeals

Fostered by the pioneering efforts of Richard Posner, William Landes and others, the early 1970s marked the beginning of a period of intense interest by economists in the application of economic tools to the operations of the legal and judicial system. This analytical investigation sparked an examination of the economic motives guiding such key players, in civil and criminal contests, as judges, prosecutors, plaintiffs, defendants and administrators of regulatory

Am I my brother's (or customer's or tenant's) keeper? Economic and ethical aspects to the California Supreme Court's struggle with the issue of landowner's standard of care.

The Supreme Court of California has ruled on several cases involving the question of to what extent a possessor of land is liable for the harm to customers or tenants occurring when a third party commits a criminal act against the customers or tenants present on the land. This paper reviews the historical development of this aspect of negligence law and analyzes the ethical and economic efficiency implications of ascribing legal responsibility for such crimes to: a) local government, b) the possessor of land, c) the customer, and d) the criminal. For example, is there an effort by the judicial system to substitute deterrence from criminal acts provided by possessors of land (i.e., specific deterrence) for the general deterrence traditionally provided through the use of police powers by local government? Analysis indicates that specific deterrence may be more effective in changing the location of criminal acts than in reducing the level of criminal activities. Also, the expense of complying with the legal responsibilities of protecting customers and clients may be especially high in high-crime, low-income areas, thus forcing commercial establishments to move or go out of business. Thus, we have a troubling tradeoff: compensating individual crime victims in a high-crime area could ultimately deprive the residents of basic economic opportunities.