IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/hksfac/5688700.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Addressing Catastrophic Risks: Disparate Anatomies Require Tailored Therapies

Author

Listed:
  • Viscusi, Kip W.
  • Zeckhauser, Richard Jay

Abstract

Catastrophic risks differ in terms of their natural or human origins, their possible amplification by human behaviors, and the relationships between those who create the risks and those who suffer the losses. Given their disparate anatomies, catastrophic risks generally require tailored therapies, with each prescribed therapy employing a specific portfolio of policy strategies. Given that catastrophic risks occur rarely, and impose extreme losses, traditional mechanisms for controlling risks – bargaining, regulation, liability – often function poorly. Commons catastrophes arise when a group of actors collectively impose such risks on themselves. When the commons is balanced, that is, when the parties are roughly symmetrically situated, a range of regulatory mechanisms can perform well. However, unbalanced commons – such as exist with climate change – will challenge any control mechanism with the disparate parties putting forth proposals to limit their own burdens. When humans impose catastrophic risks predominantly on others – as with deepwater oil spills – the risks are external. For those risks, the analysis shows, a single responsible party should be identified. Primary emphasis should then be placed on a two-tier liability system. Parties engaged in activities posing such catastrophic risks would be subject to substantial minimum financial requirements, strict liability for all damages, and a risk-based tax for expected losses that would exceed the responsible party’s ability to pay. Utilizing the financial incentives of this two-tier liability system would decrease the current reliance on regulatory policy, and would alter the role of regulators with a tilt toward financial oversight efforts and away from direct control. Catastrophic risks will always be with us. But as rare, extreme events, society has little experience with them, and current mechanisms are poorly designed to control them. Only a tailored therapy approach offers promise of significant improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Viscusi, Kip W. & Zeckhauser, Richard Jay, 2011. "Addressing Catastrophic Risks: Disparate Anatomies Require Tailored Therapies," Scholarly Articles 5688700, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
  • Handle: RePEc:hrv:hksfac:5688700
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/5688700/RWP11-045_Zeckhauser.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Viscusi, W Kip, 1988. "Product Liability and Regulation: Establishing the Appropriate Institutional Division of Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 300-304, May.
    2. Viscusi, W. Kip & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2011. "Deterring and Compensating Oil Spill Catastrophes: The Need for Strict and Two-Tier Liability," Working Paper Series rwp11-025, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    3. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    4. Alan Berger & Case Brown & Carolyn Kousky & Richard Zeckhauser, 2011. "The Challenge of Degraded Environments: How Common Biases Impair Effective Policy," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(9), pages 1423-1433, September.
    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. Gabel Taggart, 2023. "Taking stock of systems for organizing existential and global catastrophic risks: Implications for policy," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 14(3), pages 489-499, June.
    2. Raghav Gaiha & Kenneth Hill & Ganesh Thapa & Varsha S. Kulkarni, 2013. "Have natural disasters become deadlier?," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 18113, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Raghav Gaiha1 & Kenneth Hill & Ganesh Thapa, 2012. "Have Natural Disasters Become Deadlier?," ASARC Working Papers 2012-03, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.

    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. Gérard Mondello, 2022. "Strict liability, scarce generic input and duopoly competition," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(3), pages 369-404, December.
    2. Grillet, Luc L., 1992. "Markets, hierarchies, and hybrids in corporate insurance," Discussion Papers, Series II 173, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Frans P. Vries & Nick Hanley, 2016. "Incentive-Based Policy Design for Pollution Control and Biodiversity Conservation: A Review," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 63(4), pages 687-702, April.
    5. George Tridimas & Stanley L. Winer, 2018. "On the Definition and Nature of Fiscal Coercion," Carleton Economic Papers 18-09, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    6. Mario Jametti & Thomas von Ungern-Sternberg, 2005. "Assessing the Efficiency of an Insurance Provider—A Measurement Error Approach," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 30(1), pages 15-34, June.
    7. Stefan Ambec & Yann Kervinio, 2016. "Cooperative decision-making for the provision of a locally undesirable facility," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 119-155, January.
    8. Kurtis Swope & Ryan Wielgus & Pamela Schmitt & John Cadigan, 2011. "Contracts, Behavior, and the Land-assembly Problem: An Experimental Study," Research in Experimental Economics, in: Experiments on Energy, the Environment, and Sustainability, pages 151-180, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. Ralph E. Townsend, 2010. "Transactions costs as an obstacle to fisheries self-governance in New Zealand," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(3), pages 301-320, July.
    10. Simon Levin & Anastasios Xepapadeas, 2021. "On the Coevolution of Economic and Ecological Systems," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 355-377, October.
    11. Karsten Neuhoff, 2002. "Optimal congestion treatment for bilateral electricity trading," Working Papers EP05, Energy Policy Research Group, Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.
    12. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    13. Zilberman, David & Just, Richard E., 1979. "Risk Aversion And Property Rights," 1979 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, Pullman, Washington 278195, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Aseem Kaul & Jiao Luo, 2018. "An economic case for CSR: The comparative efficiency of for‐profit firms in meeting consumer demand for social goods," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1650-1677, June.
    15. Derek Jones & Panu Kalmi & Niels Mygind, 2005. "Choice of Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: Evidence from Estonia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 83-107.
    16. Jonathan M. Lee, 2015. "The Impact of Heterogeneous NOx Regulations on Distributed Electricity Generation in U.S. Manufacturing," Working Papers 15-12, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    17. Andrés Abeliuk & Gerardo Berbeglia & Pascal Van Hentenryck, 2015. "Bargaining Mechanisms for One-Way Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-21, September.
    18. Leonardo A. Lanzona, 2007. "The Determination of Contracts in Agricultural Economies," Development Economics Working Papers 22641, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    19. Giovanni Lombardo & Andrea Mazzocchetti & Irene Rapallo & Nader Tayser & Silvano Cincotti, 2019. "Assessment of the Economic and Social Impact Using SROI: An Application to Sport Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Thomas Akpan Harry & Ekemini John Peter & Nsidibe Akpan Udoduk, 2022. "Environmental Impact Assessment Of Oil Producing Communities In Part Of The Niger Delta. A Case Study Of Ibeno, Ikot Abasi, Onna And Esit-Eket Local Government Area In Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria," Environmental Contaminants Reviews (ECR), Zibeline International Publishing, vol. 5(2), pages 49-56, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law
    • Q30 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hrv:hksfac:5688700. 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ksharus.html .

    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.