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The most enduring measure of how individuals make personal decisions affecting their health and safety is the compensating wage differential for job safety risk revealed in the labor market via hedonic equilibrium outcomes. The decisions in turn reveal the value of a statistical life (VSL), the value of a statistical injury (VSI), and the value of a statistical life year (VSLY), which have both mortality and morbidity aspects that we describe and apply here. All such tradeoff rates play important roles in policy decisions concerning improving individual welfare. Specifically, we explicate the recent empirical research on VSL and its related concepts and link the empirical results to the ongoing examinations of many government policies intended to improve individuals' health and longevity. We pay special attention to recent issues such as the COVID pandemic and newly emerging foci on distributional consequences concerning which demographic groups may benefit most from certain regulations.

The attraction of public private partnerships (PPPs) for governments is that the on-ground fructification of infrastructure projects is far higher than the traditional implementation route through public sector or departmental undertakings. Besides, time overruns are also considerably reduced. However, empirical evidence does not clearly establish that PPPs are cost efficient. This coupled with the risk intensity has impacted the long run flow of private capital to infrastructure PPPs and it therefore calls for a more scientific approach to management of profitability related risks. Appropriate management control systems (MCS) could be the answer, provided they can favorably impact profitability. Aggregating data from road, ports, airports, urban infrastructure, railways and power PPP ventures implemented in India, this chapter attempts to study the relationship between MCS and returns to sponsors through regression analysis. The study concludes that multiple MCS have a significant relationship with sponsors’ profitability.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Risk evaluation and management methods are used to assess the reliability of a New Zealand inter-urban road network, which is subject to closures due to snow and ice, earthquakes, volcanic activity and road accidents. Using the probabilities and consequences of closures of various durations, the expected annual costs of closures are determined for each hazard. The benefit-cost ratios for various risk mitigation options are also identified. The importance of considering both the probabilities and consequences of closures is discussed.

It is found that a ‘high-frequency, low-consequence’ hazard (snow and ice) has the highest expected annual cost, and higher than for the ‘low-frequency, high-consequence’ hazards (earthquakes and volcanic activity). It is also found that not allowing for elasticity in the demand for travel (e.g. trips being cancelled or postponed because of road closures) leads to inaccurate estimates of the costs of closure.

It is concluded that it is important to allow for the behavioural responses of network users when estimating the costs of closures, and that more attention should be given to ‘high-frequency, low-consequence’ hazards, in order to maximise the economic benefits of expenditure on risk mitigation.

The robust appraisal of exploration drilling concepts is essential for establishing the economic viability of a prospective recovery field. This study evaluates the different concept selection methods that were considered for drilling operations at the Trym field in Norway. The construction of drilling rigs is a capital-intensive process, and it involves high levels of economic risk. These risks can be broadly categorised as aleatoric (i.e. those related to chance) and epistemic (i.e. those related to knowledge). Evaluating risks in the investment appraisal process tends to be a complicated process. Project risks are evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and are based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP). MCS provides a useful means of evaluating variabilities (i.e. aleatoric risks) in oil drilling operations. However, many of the economic risks in oil drilling processes are unanticipated, and, in some cases, are not readily expressible in quantitative values. The fuzzy AHP is therefore used to appraise the qualitatively defined indirect revenues comprising risks that affect future flexibilities, schedule certainty and health and safety performance. Both the Monte Carlo technique and the fuzzy AHP technique found that a cumulative revenue variation of up to 30% is possible in any of the considered drilling options. The fuzzy AHP technique estimates that the chances of profitability being less than NOK 1 billion over a five-year period is 0.5%, while the Monte Carlo technique estimates suggest a more conservative proportion of 10%. Overall, the fuzzy AHP technique is easy to use and flexible, and it demonstrates increased robustness and improved predictability.

Strong versions of the Precautionary Principle (PP) require regulators to prohibit or impose technology controls on activities that pose uncertain risks of possibly significant environmental harm. This decision rule is conceptually unsound and would diminish social welfare. Uncertainty as such does not justify regulatory precaution. While they should reject PP, regulators should take appropriate account of societal aversion to risks of large harm and the value of obtaining additional information before allowing environmentally risky activities to proceed.

This case study examines the controversial practice by the Commonwealth of Australia during the period 1988–2002 of using currency swaps as part of its debt management strategy. Although the strategy provided a positive return overall, the impact of currency swap usage created significant year-by-year variations in returns, which posed a risk to debt interest and financing requirements. This suggests that the risk limits imposed on this strategy were both inappropriate and insufficient. Nonetheless, these findings provide insights into how such a policy could best be implemented given recent proposals (OECD, 2007) for derivatives use by public debt managers.