Technological, economic, and political feasibility in OSHA's Air Contaminants Standard

In 1989, after almost two decades of substance-by-substance standard setting, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgated its Air Contaminants Standard, imposing new exposure limits for 376 toxic substances encountered in U.S. industry. In marked contrast to earlier regulations, the Air Contaminants Standard has generated relatively little industry opposition. This paper analyzes the standard in the context of the twenty-year debate over the appropriate role for technological feasibility and economic compliance costs in occupational health policy. The political feasibility of the new standard is traced to OSHA's abandonment of "technology forcing" in favor of reliance on "off-the-shelf" technologies already in use in major firms. While important as an embodiment of OSHA's new "generic" approach to regulation, the Air Contaminants Standard cannot serve as a model for future occupational health policy, due to its reliance on informal, closed-door mechanisms for establishing regulatory priorities and permissible exposure limits.     

"Beaten to death". An autopsy series of homicidal blunt force injuries

Although gunshot is by far the most common means of homicide in the United States, significant numbers of homicides are also perpetrated by other means. Blunt-force injuries are produced by a variety of objects, including hands and feet and many different weapons. Some of these objects produce distinctive patterns of injury of potential evidentiary value. This paper presents a series of 20 consecutive blunt-force homicides in adults. Seventy percent (14 cases) of the victims were men. Thirty percent (six cases) followed an argument or altercation. A number of the weapons used were "weapons of opportunity" seized in the course of the incidents. Sixty-nine percent (nine cases) of known assailants were acquainted with their victims. Few characteristic patterned injuries were seen. Not surprisingly, craniocerebral trauma was the most common cause of death. One half (10 cases) the victims survived their assaults for varying periods of time. Homicides due to blunt-force injury still pose a significant challenge for the forensic pathologist, who must obtain a complete and accurate history of the fatal incident, interpret patterns of injury and other findings at autopsy, and correlate all of the findings to make an accurate ruling of the cause and manner of death.     

Child witnesses and the confrontation clause

InMaryland v. Craig, the United States Supreme Court relied heavily on a brief prepared by a committee of the American Psychology-Law Society on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA brief concluded that sexually abused children may be particularly vulnerable to distress in the legal process, especially when forced to confront the defendant face to face, and that such acute distress may be inconsistent with the state's interests in promotion of reliable testimony and child welfare. APA also argued that psychological theory and research provide foundations for individualized determination of the need for measures to protect children from face-to-face confrontation. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AFE06051 00002     

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.     

The emergence of maternal-fetal conflict policies

George Washington University Medical Center's Policy on decisionmaking by pregnant patients is being widely circulated by the ACLU; copies of the Policy can be obtained by calling the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project. There is, of course, much disagreement over the details of the Policy; not everyone will agree with its underlying philosophy favoring maternal rights. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a consensus that wherever possible these conflicts should be resolved in accordance with previously adopted policies rather than by the courts on an ad hoc basis. Had the Policy been in place in 1987, the Carder case would probably not have been submitted to a judge in the first place, nor would Angela Carder have been forced to undergo a Caesarean section. All hospitals should consider adopting a maternal-fetal conflict policy, and those that do so should be aware of the George Washington University Medical Center Policy, whether or not they agree with its provisions. Whatever policy each hospital ultimately develops should be integrated with decisionmaking and informed consent policies already in place. The formulation and implementation of such a policy, reflecting the hospital's legal and ethical obligations to its pregnant patients, will go a long way towards preventing unnecessary resort to the courts.     

Circumventing formal structure through commitment: Presidential influence and agenda control

Although the formal institutional structure that defines the temporal order of play in a policy game between the Congress and President ought to provide Congress with agenda power, the President is traditionally treated as the dominant player in this relationship. We show that if the President can make clear-cut commitments, presidential commitment can counter the dominance hierarchy and the complexion of equilibrium outcomes. Thus, the details of political interactions (in particular, the possibilities for commitment) may be as important as the formal specification of institutional structure.We thank Peter Aranson, David Austen-Smith, Ed Campos, Gerry Faulhaber, Art Frank, Ken Koford, William Riker, Janet Pack, the anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Delaware, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Rochester for helpful comments, subject to the usual caveat. We also thank Joel Friedlander and Harold Dichter for research assistance.     

Competition in political and economic markets

Prepared as a response to Frey and Eichenberger's Anomalies in Political Economy. We thank Gordon Tullock for helpful discussions. This work was partially supported by the Taylor Experimental Laboratory at Washington University.     

Elections and government spending

It is widely believed that electoral pressures cause legislators to favor government spending programs. This electoral theory of spending is shown to encompass two core hypotheses: (1) the electoral consequences hypothesis, which states that support for spending programs improves the representative's electoral showing; and (2) the legislator insecurity hypothesis, which states that greater electoral insecurity leads representatives to be more in favor of spending programs. A test of these ideas using spending scores for U.S. representatives in 1986 finds that neither hypothesis is supported by the data.