Do vehicle recalls reduce the number of accidents? The case of the U.S. car market

The number of automobile recalls in the U.S. has increased sharply in the last two decades, and the numbers of units involved are often counted in the millions. In 2010 alone, over 20 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, and the massive recalls of full model lines by Toyota have brought this issue to the front pages around the country and the world. However, there is no quantitative evidence of the effect of recalls on safety. Without that evidence, the government and insurance companies have been reluctant to request and use more detailed recall information to increase correction rates, and regulators have not studied the possible link between the growing number of recalls and the risk of life for consumers. In this paper we empirically quantify the effect of vehicle recalls on safety using repeated cross‐sections on accidents of individual drivers and aggregate vehicle recall data to construct synthetic panel data on individual drivers of a particular vehicle model. We estimate the effect of recalls on the number of accidents and find that a 10 percent increase in the recall rate of a particular model reduces the accidents of that model by between 0.78 percent and 1.6 percent when using the full sample of accidents in our data. We also find that recalls classified as “hazardous” are more effective in reducing accidents, and the recall effect is especially strong when we restrict attention to accidents that lead to personal injuries and only include vehicles more likely to be at fault for the accident, but much less so for accidents that only lead to property damage. We also find that vehicle models with recalls with higher correction rates have on average fewer accidents in the years following a recall, which indicates the importance of the role of drivers' behavior regarding recalls on safety. Our findings suggest that policymakers should consider, for example, policies to allow insurance companies to take into account recall correction behavior when pricing auto insurance, which could be made possible through regulatory changes by the U.S. government, and should revisit the complex trade‐offs between pre‐ and post‐market regulation in this important industry. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Renaissance of Comprehensive Planning: The Oregon Case

During the last decade, a popular pastime among planners and others has been to discredit the comprehensive plan and the process by which such plans are developed. Advocacy planning, strategic planning, policy planning, social planning, etc., were suggested alternatives to the traditional focus of planning-the comprehensive plan, The reasons for criticism were varied, but basically they boiled down to the fact that plans often ended up on shelves collecting dust. Plans failed as continuing guides to a wide variety of decisions since they were static end-state conceptions a supposedly better world. Plans and their associated regulatory devices were found inadequate to control or limit the effects of the market-plans were simply ineffective tools. So the searcH began for alternatives or modifications to the comprehensive plan.     

Net neutrality: A user's guide

Net neutrality is a complex issue that has generated intense levels of political discussion in the United States, but which has yet to attract significant attention from regulators in the UK. Nevertheless, the question of whether network operators should be prevented from blocking or prioritising certain network traffic or traffic from particular sources is a significant one for a wide range of stakeholders in the digital networked economy. Network operators contend that the build costs for the next generation of networks are so high that they must be permitted to monetise their control over this infrastructure as efficiently as possible. Meanwhile, an eclectic mix of interests including content and service providers, free speech and special interest groups and entertainers, argue that net neutrality regulation is necessary to guarantee that the Internet's core values and social utility are preserved. This article offers an introduction to net neutrality from a UK perspective. The authors explain the technical, commercial, political and legal considerations that underpin the issue and suggest that, whilst net neutrality regulation in its strongest incarnation is not practical or desirable, a level of regulatory action designed to enhance the choices of end users is the best way forward.     

The Effects of Perceived Procedural Justice on Conflict Management between Spouses,and the Mediating Role of Dyadic Adjustment

In this study, we examined the role that perceived procedural justice (PPJ) plays in the conflict management behaviors that intimate spouses adopt and endorse. In this context, PPJ has been defined as the degree to which one perceives that his or her spouse makes decisions fairly, considerately, and in a participatory manner. To test the impact of perceived procedural justice on conflict resolution behavior, we applied the dual‐concern model of conflict management style. In an experiment in which participants read fictional scenarios and predicted spouses’ responses, we found that perceptions of strong PPJ enhanced the prediction of integrating (problem solving), compromising, and, to a lesser degree, obliging behavior. Perceived procedural justice also caused a reduction in avoidance behavior, but no effect we found on dominating (competing) behavior. In a following correlational study, we also found that PPJ positively correlated to enhanced integrating, compromising, and obliging behaviors, and these correlations were partially or fully mediated by the degree of “dyadic adjustment,” which is a measure of relationship health. In addition, in this second study, we found no correlation between perceived procedural justice and dominating or avoiding behavior. In both studies, participants either predicted or chose collaborative behaviors more than non‐collaborative ones. We conclude that the perception that one's partner is behaving in a procedurally just way can enhance active and egalitarian collaboration in marriage and other intimate partner relationships, but that the absence of PPJ does not seem to encourage active non‐collaboration, particularly not highly self‐centered dominating behavior.     

Negotiating Education Reform: Teacher Evaluations and Incentives in Chile (1990–2010)

Reforms designed to improve the quality of teaching by reforming personnel practices, such as pay for performance arrangements, usually run into opposition from well‐organized teacher unions that can either block reform in the short run or undermine it over the longer term. The experience of a series of reforms that introduced collective and individual pay incentives for teachers in Chile from 1990 to 2010 provide a rare example of ongoing negotiation with the teacher union that resulted in an institutionalized structure of incentive pay for teachers as well as widespread attitudes of sustained support among teachers for performance pay. Chile offers an important example of how sustained change in incentive pay can be achieved through ongoing negotiation.