Evaluating Technological Risk Prescriptive and Descriptive Perspectives

Lathrop, J.W. (1981). Evaluating Technological Risk Prescriptive and Descriptive Perspectives. IIASA Working Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: WP-81-078

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Abstract

Decisions concerning the deployment and management of novel or hazardous technologies raise several issues involving the evaluation of their impacts on society. Examples of such decisions include the siting of a liquefied natural gas facility, the regulation of nuclear energy production, and the screening and regulation of toxic chemicals. Each of these kinds of decisions results in uncertain benefits and costs to society. It would seem reasonable, then, that such decisions could be aided by any of several analytic techniques, including cost-benefit analysis, or perhaps decision analysis, which could include in the evaluation attitudes toward uncertainty and value tradeoffs between conflicting objectives. However, there are often special aspects involved in such decisions which can make standard technical or economic analyses not very useful for aiding political decision-making processes.

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