IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v4y2001i2p127-141.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decision-analytic refinements of the precautionary principle

Author

Listed:
  • John D. Graham

Abstract

In public decision making about uncertain technological hazards, the precautionary principle calls for prompt protective action rather than delay of protections until scientific uncertainty is resolved. The precautionary principle has a sound basis in decision theory, particularly in situations where the potential hazards are serious and the costs of protective actions are tolerable. This article suggests that the precautionary principle should be refined to address three complications: (1) situations where the exposures to be reduced or prevented may have beneficial as well as hazardous consequences; (2) situations where the protective action itself will create potential hazards; and (3) situations where targeted research investments, coupled with delay of protective action, are likely to support wiser public decisions than prompt protective action. Each of these complications is shown to be relevant to contemporary policy debates about application of the precautionary principle. The usefulness of the precautionary principle in public decision making will be enhanced if these decision-analytic refinements are adopted in formal definitions of the principle.

Suggested Citation

  • John D. Graham, 2001. "Decision-analytic refinements of the precautionary principle," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 127-141, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:4:y:2001:i:2:p:127-141
    DOI: 10.1080/13669870010005590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870010005590
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669870010005590?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard B. Howarth, 1995. "Sustainability under Uncertainty: A Deontological Approach," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 71(4), pages 417-427.
    2. Edward J. Calabrese & Linda A. Baldwin & Charles D. Holland, 1999. "Hormesis: A Highly Generalizable and Reproducible Phenomenon With Important Implications for Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(2), pages 261-281, April.
    3. Kimberly M. Thompson & John S. Evans, 1997. "The Value of Improved National Exposure Information for Perchloroethylene (Perc): A Case Study for Dry Cleaners," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 253-271, April.
    4. Maxine E. Dakins & John E. Toll & Mitchell J. Small & Kevin P. Brand, 1996. "Risk‐Based Environmental Remediation: Bayesian Monte Carlo Analysis and the Expected Value of Sample Information," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(1), pages 67-79, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jessica Stern & Jonathan B. Wiener, 2006. "Precaution Against Terrorism," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 393-447, June.
    2. Erik Persson, 2014. "What Does It Take to Establish that a World Is Uninhabited Prior to Exploitation? A Question of Ethics as well as Science," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-15, August.
    3. Ragnar E. Löfstedt, 2013. "The Informal European Parliamentary Working Group on Risk—History, Remit, and Future Plans: A Personal View," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(7), pages 1182-1187, July.
    4. Krutilla,Kerry Mace & Good,David Henning & Toman,Michael A. & Arin,Tijen, 2020. "Implementing Precaution in Benefit-Cost Analysis : The Case of Deep Seabed Mining," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9307, The World Bank.
    5. Kaivanto, Kim & Kwon, Winston, 2015. "The Precautionary Principle as a Heuristic Patch," MPRA Paper 67036, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Miguel Ángel Recuerda Girela, 2011. "The EU Precautionary Principle Impacts Both Food Safety and Market Entry and Competitiveness," Chapters, in: Emiel F.M. Wubben (ed.), Institutions and Regulation for Economic Growth?, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Anne van Aaken & Janis Antonovics & Jonathan B. Wiener, 2016. "The Tragedy of the Uncommons: On the Politics of Apocalypse," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 7, pages 67-80, May.
    8. Heyen, Daniel & Goeschl, Timo & Wiesenfarth , Boris, 2015. "Risk Assessment under Ambiguity: Precautionary Learning vs. Research Pessimism," Working Papers 0605, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. A. E. Ades & S. Cliffe, 2002. "Markov Chain Monte Carlo Estimation of a Multiparameter Decision Model: Consistency of Evidence and the Accurate Assessment of Uncertainty," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 22(4), pages 359-371, August.
    2. A. E. Ades & G. Lu & K. Claxton, 2004. "Expected Value of Sample Information Calculations in Medical Decision Modeling," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 24(2), pages 207-227, March.
    3. Fumie Yokota & Kimberly M. Thompson, 2004. "Value of Information Literature Analysis: A Review of Applications in Health Risk Management," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 24(3), pages 287-298, June.
    4. Kan Shao & Mitchell J. Small, 2011. "Potential Uncertainty Reduction in Model‐Averaged Benchmark Dose Estimates Informed by an Additional Dose Study," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(10), pages 1561-1575, October.
    5. Ngo Long & Vincent Martinet, 2018. "Combining rights and welfarism: a new approach to intertemporal evaluation of social alternatives," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 50(1), pages 35-64, January.
    6. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Quaas, Martin F., 2009. "Ecological-economic viability as a criterion of strong sustainability under uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2008-2020, May.
    7. Bjørnsen, Kjartan & Selvik, Jon Tømmerås & Aven, Terje, 2019. "A semi-quantitative assessment process for improved use of the expected value of information measure in safety management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 494-502.
    8. Edgar G. Hertwich & Thomas E. McKone & William S. Pease, 1999. "Parameter Uncertainty and Variability In Evaluative Fate and Exposure Models," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(6), pages 1193-1204, December.
    9. Sofia Dias & Alex J. Sutton & Nicky J. Welton & A. E. Ades, 2013. "Evidence Synthesis for Decision Making 6," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 33(5), pages 671-678, July.
    10. Verchère, Alban, 2011. "Le développement durable en question : analyses économiques autour d’un improbable compromis entre acceptions optimiste et pessimiste du rapport de l’Homme à la Nature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 87(3), pages 337-403, septembre.
    11. Claire McKenna & Karl Claxton, 2011. "Addressing Adoption and Research Design Decisions Simultaneously," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 31(6), pages 853-865, November.
    12. Palmini, Dennis, 1999. "Uncertainty, risk aversion, and the game theoretic foundations of the safe minimum standard: a reassessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 463-472, June.
    13. Stefano Conti & Karl Claxton, 2008. "Dimensions of design space: a decision-theoretic approach to optimal research design," Working Papers 038cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    14. Fumie Yokota & George Gray & James K. Hammitt & Kimberly M. Thompson, 2004. "Tiered Chemical Testing: A Value of Information Approach," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(6), pages 1625-1639, December.
    15. Karl Claxton & Elisabeth Fenwick & Mark J. Sculpher, 2012. "Decision-making with Uncertainty: The Value of Information," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 51, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Richard A. Williams & Kimberly M. Thompson, 2004. "Integrated Analysis: Combining Risk and Economic Assessments While Preserving the Separation of Powers," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(6), pages 1613-1623, December.
    17. Christos Zografos & Richard B. Howarth, 2010. "Deliberative Ecological Economics for Sustainability Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(11), pages 1-19, October.
    18. Bromley, Daniel W., 1998. "Searching for sustainability: The poverty of spontaneous order," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 231-240, February.
    19. Michael Greenberg & Karen Lowrie, 2011. "Celebrating Three Decades of Public Policy‐Oriented Interdisciplinary Research," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(1), pages 7-11, January.
    20. Sung, Hwansoo & Shortle, James S., 2006. "The Expected Value of Sample Information Analysis for Nonpoint Water Quality Management," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21296, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:4:y:2001:i:2:p:127-141. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJRR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.