The devaluation of life

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the target of two recent controversies involving the devaluation of life: the 2003 use of a senior discount for the value of statistical life for people over age 65, and the 2008 downward reassessment of the value of statistical life by the EPA Air Office. Even though these new values of statistical life were still among the highest used in the Federal government, there was a strong negative public reaction to each. The public outcry over the EPA policies appears to have stemmed from an irrational response to decreases in the value of statistical life. Proposed Congressional legislation that purportedly seeks to reform the valuations would politicize benefit assessments. A sounder approach is to establish a peer‐reviewed scientific advisory panel to advise agencies on the value of statistical life.     

传统生命观的诠释与生命教育

生命是人类一切活动或尊严的基石和根本，是构建社会主义和谐社会的前提和基础。只有生命意识深入人心，只有每个人的生命得到珍爱、尊重、敬畏和保障，社会生活才能真正走上和谐。因此，在构建和谐社会的整个过程中，必须加强生命教育，形成珍爱生命、尊重生命、敬畏生命、善待生命的良好社会氛围。     

The life and times of Gordon Tullock

Gordon Tullock is a founding father of public choice. In an academic career that has spanned 50 years, he forged much of the research agenda of the public choice program and he founded and edited Public Choice, the key journal of public choice scholarship. Tullock, however did much more than this. This Special Issue of Public Choice honors Gordon Tullock in precisely the manner that he most values: the creation of new ideas across the vast range of his own scholarly interests.     

制度质量与组织生命

制度对组织来说是至关重要的,它的质量决定着组织能否健康有序的发展。然而制度制定与执行却是一项复杂的、长久的、动态的过程,它不仅面临着制度环境的影响,也体现着作为制度的本质要求。