Educated guesses: health risk assessment in environmental impact statements

Environmental pollution threatens public health. The search for solutions has advanced the frontiers of science and law. Efforts to protect the environment and public health begin with describing potential adverse consequences of human activities and characterizing the predicted risk. The National Environmental Policy Act requires the preparation of environmental impact statements to describe the effects of proposed federal projects and provide information for agency decisionmakers and the public. Risks to public health are particularly difficult to quantify because of uncertainty about the relation between exposure to environmental contamination and disease. Risk assessment is the current scientific tool to present estimates of risk. The methodology has created controversy, however, when underlying assumptions and uncertainties are not clearly presented. Critics caution that the methodology is vulnerable to bias. This Note evaluates the use of risk assessment in the environmental impact statement process and offers recommendations to ensure informed decisions.     

THE TROUBLE WITH HEDGE FUNDS

This article examines the impact of hedge funds on the workings of international financial markets and their implications for public policy. In contrast to the neoclassical view of hedge funds, which views them as being‘too‐small‐to‐matter, this article argues that the activities of hedge funds are significant for policymakers because of their ability to become extensively overleveraged and to act as market leaders. I consider the role played by hedge funds in financial crises, market volatility, market manipulation and systemic risk. The article concludes with a critical review of recent proposals for dealing with the public policy issues raised by hedge funds.     

Forecasts and Preferences in the 1992 General Election

Little attention has been paid to the influence of expectations for victory on the formation of general election preferences in U.S. presidential races. There is good reason to believe, however, that under certain conditions citizens' forecasts of who will win the fall election may influence their preference and their vote. We model preferences during the course of the fall 1992 campaign as a function of two kinds of expectations. First we attempt to identify a component of expectations that is independent of political projection. We discover that expectations based only on information about the race play a prominent role in preference formation early in the fall but decline later as the cost of information drops. Similar results obtain when we include projection in the model of expectations. We conclude that general elections may have some of the same dynamic properties that are observable in primaries. Since early momentum in the fall campaign may influence subsequent preference formation, we contend that leads in early polls are valuable.