Irrational Economist_ Making Decisions in a Dangerous World - Erwann Michel-Kerjan [127]
The value model separately included personal direct impacts and societal indirect impacts, and the contributors to each of those were differentiated as to whether they pertained to public or worker fatalities. One parameter in the model indicated the relative importance given to the indirect societal impact of the first public fatality compared to the direct personal impact of that fatality. In subsequent assessments of that parameter for decisions that involved the possible misuse of stolen nuclear material with four knowledgeable individuals at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the relative importance given to that indirect societal impact versus the direct personal impact was 10, 27, 45, and 118, respectively.
Three aspects of this model and the accompanying assessments are pertinent to policy making. The first is that the model made a clear distinction between the direct personal impacts of fatalities and the indirect societal impacts they induced in important policy areas. Second, it built an explicit value model that allowed one to incorporate these different impacts and keep them distinct from each other. Third, the assessments demonstrated that the societal impact seemed significant at least to a few people who thought hard about the situation.
EDUCATING POLICY MAKERS ABOUT DECISION SCIENCES CONCEPTS
In many government agencies and legislatures, a high proportion of staff and managers influence policy in some way. I believe that a major shortcoming that undermines quality policy making is that many policy makers do not understand many of the concepts relevant to the complex decisions facing them.
The solution, therefore, is to provide focused education and training in decision sciences concepts. The education component might be composed of two courses: a basic course on the fundamental concepts of the decision sciences, with numerous policy examples, and an advanced course on specific concepts in depth. The former course would be for everyone, providing thoughts and information for policy choices, and the latter course would be for decision makers who make or recommend specific policy choices. The courses should be developed with video presentations on the Internet, supported by a central staff for operation of the programs nationwide. The training component should be done in modules developed to be relevant to individual decision makers’ responsibilities in order to facilitate the use and application of the learned decision sciences concepts on policy problems. Development of these programs would include identifying the key decision sciences concepts useful for policy analysis. Testing of the educational products would be essential for improvement before opening the program to all who may benefit. Additional adjustments to the programs over time would be partially guided by their contributions to the overall objective—namely, to contribute to better-informed policy decisions and, ultimately, to better policy decisions.
RECOMMENDED READING
Bond, S. D., K. A. Carlson, and R. L. Keeney (2008). “Generating Objectives: Can Decision Makers Articulate What They Want?” Management Science 54: 56-70.
Hammond, J.S., R.L. Keeney, and H. Raiffa (1999). Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kasperson, R. E., O. Renn, P. Slovic, H. S. Brown, J. Emel, R. Goble, J. X. Kasperson, and S. Ratick (1988). “The Social Amplification of Risk: A Conceptual Framework.” Risk Analysis 8: 177-187.
Keeney, R. L. (1980). “Evaluating Alternatives Involving Potential Fatalities.” Operations Research 28: 188-205.
U.S. Geological Survey Staff (1990). “The Loma Prieta California Earthquake: An Anticipated Event.” Science 247: 286-293.
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Decision Making
A View on Tomorrow
HOWARD RAIFFA
A WIDER SCOPE FOR THE DECISION SCIENCES
When I