The Society for Risk Analysis’ Economics and Benefits Analysis Specialty Group (EBASG) focuses on the use of economic analyses to support risk management decisions. These analyses provide information on the costs, benefits, and other impacts of alternative approaches for reducing risks. Our goals include encouraging better integration between risk assessors, economists, and others involved in risk management decisions, as well as enhancing the data and methods available for conducting economic analyses.
Recent News and Events
- The second part of the Risk Analysis Special Series on Risk Regulation is now available online, and includes articles that consider the interface between risk assessment, economic analysis, and risk regulation. SRA members can access the articles for free through the SRA website. They include the following:
- Introduction to Part 2 of the Special Series on Risk Regulation (Lisa A. Robinson)
- The [R]Evolving Relationship Between Risk Assessment and Risk Management (Lisa A. Robinson and Jonathan I. Levy)
- Overcoming Barriers to Integrating Economic Analysis into Risk Assessment (Sandra Hoffmann)
- Risk Assessment of Environmental Chemicals: If It Ain't Broke... (Bernard D. Goldstein)
- Diminishing Willingness to Pay per Quality-Adjusted Life Year: Valuing Acute Foodborne Illness (Kevin Haninger and James K. Hammitt)
- Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions from Environmental, Transport and Health Policies: A Global Meta-Analysis of Stated Preference Studies (Henrik Lindhjem, Stale Navrud, Nils Axel Braathen, and Vincent Biausque)
- Behavioral Economics and Regulatory Analysis (Lisa A. Robinson and James K. Hammitt)
- The Challenge of Degraded Environments: How Common Biases Impair Effective Policy (Alan Berger, Case Brown, Carolyn Kousky and Richard Zeckhauser)
- EBASG announces two exciting professional development workshops to be held on Sunday, December 4, 2011, as part of the SRA Annual Meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, including “Synthesizing Evidence: An Introduction to Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analysis, and Expert Elicitation” and “Eliciting Judgments to Inform Decisionmaking”.
- Watch your email and this site for exciting news on EBASG events at the December 4-7, 2011 Annual Meeting in Charleston, SC. The agenda will include continuing education workshops and symposia that address many issues of interest to EBASG members, as well as other panels and opportunities for networking and socializing. We also will be holding our EBASG business meeting and announcing our student award.
- Please don't forget to pay your dues! They are only $10 annually and help support our events at the annual meeting as well as other activities. Information is available on our membership page. Feel free to contact any of the EBASG Officers with your questions, suggestions or concerns. We look forward to hearing from you!
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science Advisory Board recently issued a report that could significantly affect the benefit-cost analysis of environmental, health, and safety regulations. This report addresses the value of small mortality risk reductions (commonly referred to as the "Value per Statistical Life" or VSL) and suggests several improvements in current practices.
- We are pleased to announce that the June issue of Risk Analysis includes Part 1 of our Special Series on Risk Regulation, and is now available online. Part 1 includes articles that address the institutional and legal framework for risk regulation, and the impacts of these regulations on the distribution of wealth and health. As an SRA member, you can gain free access to these articles by logging in at http://www.birenheide.com/sra/journal/. The June issue includes the following:
- Introduction to Part 1 of the Special Series on Risk Regulation (Lisa A. Robinson)
- The Role of Analysis on the 17 Most Political Acres on the Face of the Earth (Donald R. Arbuckle)
- Defragmenting the Regulatory Process (Stuart Shapiro)
- Incorporating Equity in Regulatory and Benefit-Cost Analysis Using Risk-Based Preferences (Scott Farrow)
- Maximizing Health Benefits and Minimizing Inequality: Incorporating Local-Scale Data in the Design and Evaluation of Air Quality Policies (Neal Fann, Henry A. Roman, Charles M. Fulcher, Mikael A. Gentile, Bryan J. Hubbell, Karen Wesson and Jonathan I. Levy)
- Six Distributional Effects of Environmental Policy (Don Fullerton)
- Thanks to all of you who participated in the December 2010 SRA Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City! It was wonderful to see everyone and to hear the many interesting EBASG presentations, addressing topics ranging from benefit-cost analysis to food safety to catastrophic risks. We also sponsored successful workshops on the "Use of Expert Elicitation to Inform Decisionmaking" and an "Introduction to Behavioral Economics." EBASG members discussed many wonderful ideas for future events at our business meeting and mixer; please contact any of the officers with suggestions or questions.
- In December 2009, EBASG members organized several successful sessions at SRA’s Annual Meeting, “Risk Analysis: The Evolution of a Science.” Highlights include:
- Workshops on expert elicitation and other topics of interest.
- Several sessions on assessing regulations, estimating costs, and valuing benefits.
- The EBASG business meeting
- On September 17, 2009, SRA’s New England chapter sponsored a seminar on “Risks and Rationality: Challenges to Sound Decisionmaking,” with three distinguished speakers. James K. Hammitt, Director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, discussed “Positive and Normative Justifications for Benefit-Cost Analysis;” Richard Zeckhauser, from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, described “The Five Neglects: Risks Gone Amiss;” and David Laibson, from Harvard's Department of Economics, presented “How are Preferences Revealed?” Copies of the presentations are available on the seminar page of the SRA-NE website.
- SRA’s Economics and Benefits Analysis Specialty Group and Risk Policy and Law Specialty Group co-sponsored the highly successful “New Ideas for Risk Regulation” conference with Resources for the Future (RFF) in June 2009. Downloadable copies of the presentations and related papers are now available on the SRA event website. The conference video and audio can be viewed on the RFF event website.
- In January 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum directing the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to produce recommendations on a new Executive Order on Federal regulatory review. In February,OMB issued a request for public comment, receiving over 180 comments including several from SRA members. Related documents are available on the OMB website; the comments prepared by a committee of past SRA presidents are also available on the SRA site.
- In December 2008, the National Research Council released the report, Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment, which recommends significant changes in how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assesses risks. Many of its recommendations focus on increasing the usefulness of these assessments for risk management decisions, strengthening the link between risk assessment and economic analyses.
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