Technocratic precautionary principle: Korean risk governance of mad cow disease

This study investigates the multiplicity of sciences and the assemblage of technocracy with the precautionary principle (PP) in the Korean risk governance of mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [BSE]). It conducts a policy typological analysis and a sociocultural analysis of the PP. Korean BSE policies are built on the technocratic PP. This principle emphasizes the scientific evidence of risk, although taking precautionary policy actions against BSE. This principle led to the absence of a total BSE inspection, a specified risk material policy for Korean cattle, a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point policy for beef processing and circulation, and an animal feed ban on nonruminants. Moreover, the BSE debate is not one about a unified science vs. a unified PP, but rather it concerns complex struggles between PPs in alliance with different sciences.     

Scientist and public responses to BSE‐related risk: A comparative study

Social studies of risk repeatedly have found substantial divergences in the way that experts/scientists and members of the general public appraise risks associated with health and environmental hazards. However, empirical evidence for these differences remains controversial. A recent review of literature suggests in particular that divergences between experts and lay people may potentially result from confounding socio‐demographic factors. The purpose of the present article is to investigate and to compare how medical scientists and members of the general population reacted to BSE (“mad cow disease”) in France. A sample of 401 scientists belonging to the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and a representative sample of 902 French citizens were asked about their cognitive, affective and behavioural responses to BSE. Results show that non‐scientists tended to express much more concern about BSE‐related risk than scientists, even when socio‐demographic variables were controlled. However, (1) no significant differences were found between these two groups concerning subjective epidemiological predictions, and (2) scientists manifested greater avoidance of beef or beef by‐products avoidance following the BSE epidemic than lay respondents did. The implications of these paradoxical results are discussed.     

Precautionary advice about mobile phones: public understandings and intended responses

There is a widespread academic and policy debate about public responses to precaution in public health campaigns. This paper explores these issues in relation to the precautionary stance adopted in the UK around the regulation of mobile telecommunications. The aim of the paper is to examine the nature of attitudes to precaution, and the way in which these, along with other relevant variables, relate to the intention to adopt relevant behaviours. The results from an experimental study (n = 173) indicate that people distinguish between two dimensions of precaution: firstly in relation to its value or necessity per se and secondly as anchored to notions of governance. The two variables differentially relate to other variables including trust and uncertainty, and are predictive of intended behaviour change indirectly, through worry about mobile phone risks. Precautionary advice was generally interpreted as causing concern rather than providing reassurance. The results suggest that precaution may be considered a valuable stance but this does not mean that it is seen as good governance or that it will reduce concern. Whilst the discourse of precaution is aimed at reducing concern, it appears that the uptake of relevant behaviours is largely triggered by worry.     

Problems with precaution: the transfusion medicine experience

The precautionary principle is a dominant paradigm governing risk-based decision-making. Today, there are increasing pressures to re-examine aggressive precautionary approaches, and to assess how the principle should be applied in the modern system. In this paper, we examined three key applications of precautionary approaches in the field of transfusion medicine to provide insight into the risks and benefits of these approaches. The three case studies examined were the donor deferral policies to safeguard against transfusion transmission of human immunodeficiency virus, variant Creutzfeldt–Jacob disease, and, lastly, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus. Characterization of precautionary applications was conducted using an embedded case study design. Our findings indicate that transfusion transmission mitigation strategies have become increasingly aggressive in the face of theoretical risks. In contrast, the review processes for implementation and reversal of precautionary policies have been slow, and historical donor deferral policies are still in place today. Application of precautionary approaches has proved challenging with both benefits and pitfalls. In light of emerging threats to the blood system, policy-makers should consider the implementation of frameworks to guide the appropriate application of precaution in transfusion medicine in the future.     

The EC courts' contribution to refining the parameters of precaution

By virtue of its ambiguity, it has largely been left to the courts to flesh out the scope and application of the precautionary principle. This paper examines the contribution made by EC courts to defining the parameters of precautionary decision making. In so doing, it illustrates that, though the precautionary principle is seen to operate in a number of regulatory contexts, discernible trends in judicial interpretations of precaution and the underlying notion of ‘uncertainty’ can nevertheless be identified. In contrast with early judgments, the courts are beginning to explicitly interpret risk assessment processes as having a pivotal role in determining precautionary intervention. Rather than finding simply that circumstances of uncertainty warrant precautionary measures, the courts have started to require that clear, or ‘concrete’, evidence of harm, deriving from risk assessment, is established before intervention is justified. This paper posits three explanations for this shift: (i) the ‘better regulation’ initiative within Europe; (ii) the Commission's Communication on the Precautionary Principle; and (iii) WTO litigation on precautionary safeguard measures. The judicial move to affiliate precaution with risk assessment processes in decision making can be seen as a reflection of these factors.     

GUEST EDITORIAL: Cutting corners in chemical risk limitation

The first genetically modified crops and foods to be approved for commercial use in the European Union have prompted intense controversy. Food retailers and processors have been forced to take up the concerns voiced by their customers. New networks of groups have formed to oppose the technology. In response to these pressures, regulators who approved the products have had to reconsider questions they had previously dismissed or officially resolved. Governments have devised more precautionary measures of various kinds. For example, they have increased the burden of evidence for demonstrating safety, have broadened the practical definition of the ‘adverse effects’ which must be prevented, and have devised marketstage precautions for such effects. These extra measures manage the risk debate as well as any risks. In such ways, the technocratic model of European harmonization is being challenged and superseded. This may allow differences in national practices to be viewed as valuable expert resources for a different harmonization model, rather than as deviations from a universal rational norm. Regulatory conflicts offer precautionary opportunities, which could lead to more flexible and democratic procedures. Theoretical perspectives – on risk, uncertainty, precaution, European integration, expertise and the internal market – help illuminate these possibilities.     

Five charges against the precautionary principle

We defend the precautionary principle against five common charges, namely that it is ill-defined, absolutist, and a value judgement, increases risk-taking, and marginalizes science. We argue, first, that the precautionary principle is, in principle, no more vague or ill-defined than other decision principles and like them it can be made precise through elaboration and practice. Second, the precautionary principle need not be absolutist in the way that has been claimed. A way to avoid this is through combining the precautionary principle with a specification of the degree of scientific evidence required to trigger precaution, and/or with some version of the de minimis rule. Third, the precautionary principle does not lead to increased risk-taking, unless the framing is too narrow, and then the same problem applies to other decision rules as well. Fourth, the precautionary principle is indeed value-based, but only to the same extent as other decision rules. Fifth and last, the precautionary principle is not unscientific other than in the weak sense of not being exclusively based on science. In that sense all decision rules are unscientific.     

The distribution of earnings relative to targets in the European Union

This paper provides evidence on the distribution of reported earnings relative to targets in the Member States of the European Union (EU). For a large sample of over 60,000 firm-years between 1986 and 2001, we find that more firms than expected (i) report small positive earnings, (ii) report small positive earnings changes and (iii) have zero or small positive forecast errors. These discontinuities are much more pronounced in the EU compared to the US, and the distributions of reported earnings and earnings changes are characterised by lower dispersion and more clustering around zero, consistent with higher income smoothing in Europe. Across the EU, we find that the avoidance of a loss or an earnings decrease is more common in those Member States which do not have a long history of accounting standard setting, and particularly in those which, until recently, were almost entirely law-based. The earnings distributions and earnings change distributions of UK firms resemble more those of their counterparts in the US. and differ from the rest of the EU. despite the various EU harmonisation efforts that have taken place.     

The precautionary principle: an 'unprincipled' approach to biotechnology regulation

A tenet of administrative law, particularly in the United States, is that regulators must base their decisions on 'intelligible principles' to provide consistency, predictability, transparency and accountability. The precautionary principle, which purports to provide a new decision rule for making environmental decisions under conditions of uncertainty, fails to provide such an intelligible principle for making decisions. The precautionary principle is ambiguous on the use of the two major criteria currently used to make environmental decisions - significant risk and cost-benefit balancing - yet offers no new specific decision criteria in their place. The second fundamental problem with the precautionary principle is that it is based on the unsubstantiated premise that the current regulatory system is insufficiently protective. The current system already tends to err on the side of the safety, as it should, but the relevant question is just how precautious should we be? As illustrated by the example of genetically modified organisms, the prudent level of precaution depends on factors such as the magnitude, distribution and uncertainty of risks, the extent of exposure, and the trade-offs and lost benefits in foregoing the risk. These are precisely the factors that are considered under the current risk-based approach, which the precautionary principle seeks to replace.     

Commentary: Morality and workability ­ a rejoinder to O'Riordan

This paper is about understanding the rhetoric of precaution and the practice of decision-making in areas of environmental controversy. It untangles the rhetoric, as established in documented agreements referring to precaution, from the constituent ideas that embody it, as characterized by those who deliberate on its application. By analysing the ways in which the rhetoric of precaution is framed within these documents it is possible to identify different elements that make up the principle in theory. By focussing on the constituent ideas behind the precautionary principle it is possible to move forward from the stalemate of rhetoric that could become the focus of attention itself.     

政治系统与法律系统对于技术风险的决策观察

德国社会学家尼古拉斯·卢曼的社会系统论和二阶观察理论所提供的社会建构论框架,有助于我们从技术、时间、知识、决策等维度厘清技术风险形成的复杂社会机制,促进我们对政治系统和法律系统中的技术风险管制活动进行反思性观察。政治系统通过政策性决策活动规划和控制技术风险的努力,本身也会导致决策风险,政治系统因此发展出令规制失灵而被社会遗忘的应对能力;法律系统内部发展出来的风险预防原则,其功能不在于增加社会的安全水平,而是作为一种程序性反应机制,吸收因科学技术后果的不确定性所导致的环境复杂性。     

Precautionary Saving and Consumption Smoothing across Time and Possibilities

This paper examines how aversion to risk and aversion to intertemporal substitution determine the strength of the precautionary saving motive in a two-period model with Selden/Kreps–Porteus preferences. For small risks, we derive a measure of the strength of the precautionary saving motive that generalizes the concept of "prudence" introduced by Kimball (1990b) . For large risks, we show that decreasing absolute risk aversion guarantees that the precautionary saving motive is stronger than risk aversion, regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Holding risk preferences fixed, the extent to which the precautionary saving motive is stronger than risk aversion increases with the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. We derive sufficient conditions for a change in risk preferences alone to increase the strength of the precautionary saving motive and for the strength of the precautionary saving motive to decline with wealth. Within the class of constant elasticity of intertemporal substitution, constant-relative risk aversion utility functions, these conditions are also necessary.     

Risk as perceived by the German public: pervasive risks and “switching” risks

In 2001, a major project on the perception and evaluation of risks in southern Germany was conducted consisting of survey data as well as of semi‐structured interviews. With reference to the psychometric paradigm, this article analyzes public risk perception, pointing out the perceived risk semantic for nuclear energy, GM‐food, mad cow disease (BSE), crime, global climate change, mobile telephony and its radiation risks. These hazards reveal different patterns of risk perception and different levels of risk acceptability. Secondly, a comparison of qualitative and quantitative findings will be conducted: qualitative analyses indicate that the results of quantitative rating scales on the perception, evaluation and acceptance of technical and environmental hazards might be misleading since the public's focus on risks as elicited by open association stimuli relies much more on ‘everyday‐life’ and ‘pervasive’ risks than for instance on hazards emerging from new technologies. The relevance of technological risks tends to be dependent on the context: If explicitly mentioned in newscasts, in debates or listed in questionnaires memories, fears or other immediate responses become activated, yet they may be forgotten a short time later. We have called this phenomenon “switching effect” and the respective risks “switching risks”. In standardized opinion polls such ‘switching effects’ may evoke firm judgments, even if the importance in the interviewee's mental representation seems marginal.     

Inter- and intra-regional stock market relations for the GCC bloc

This paper examines the patterns of information transmission for equity markets in the seven Gulf Cooperation Council countries over the period from 2004 to 2019. Using weekly data, correlations and spillovers both within the region and from the US, the EU and Japan are modelled through the Dynamic Conditional Correlation-GARCH model and the Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index. While GCC markets exhibit increasing correlations with, primarily, the EU and, to a lesser extent, the US, they nonetheless remain relatively less interlinked globally. Our findings support significant return and volatility spillovers from the EU and the US to the GCC markets, with stronger spillovers from the EU. Intra-regionally, the UAE is the main transmitter and receiver of spillovers between the GCC and world markets. Furthermore, we see evidence of a decoupling pattern within the GCC countries, with notable segmentation in the markets of Bahrain and Kuwait.     

Communication about a communication technology

As genetically modified (GM) products approach the market stage, the UK government and agro-food industry have faced a suspicious or hostile public. Since 1998 many retail chains have undertaken to exclude any GM-derived ingredients from their own-brand lines. This commercial blockage has intensified pressures for greater precaution, even for a moratorium on cultivating GM crops. Political protest has led to strategies for precautionary commercialization. Government and industry have cooperated to plan a ‘managed development’ of GM crops. Across the agricultural supply chain, industry has devised voluntary guidelines to ensure segregation of GM crops and to limit the spread of GM herbicide-tolerance. In particular UK regulators seek to test the risk that broad-spectrum herbicide sprays could damage wildlife habitats; they have broadened the advisory expertise accordingly. These measures open up the precautionary content to further debate, at both national and EU levels. Market-stage precautions establish a means to test claims that GM crops are environmentally-friendly products. By translating public concerns into broader risk-assessment criteria, the UK procedure involves critics in potentially influencing standards of scientific evidence and environmental harm. This social process has become a prerequisite for legitimizing commercial use.     

The effectiveness of the Fed’s quantitative easing policy: New evidence based on international interest rate differentials

This paper explores the effects of non-standard monetary policies on international yield relationships. We first document that long-term rates followed a common global downward trend that had already manifested itself prior to the financial crisis. The bond-buying operations (commonly dubbed Quantitative Easing (QE)) of the US Federal Reserve did not disturb this global co-movement – i.e. the global downward trend in interest rates. We model the relationship between USD and euro (riskless) long-term interest rates using a Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Model (CVAR) employing recursive estimation methods. We find no evidence that QE1 (or the QE episodes) destabilized the transatlantic interest-rate relationship, nor the relationship between interest rates and the US dollar exchange rate. A robustness test using a Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) with interest rates, inflation rates and output differentials for 11 countries (relative to US) yielded the same result. There is thus little evidence that central bank bond-buying in the US had an independent, distinct impact on US interest rates.     

地方政府财政风险:表现形式、成因与防范

财政是政府实现其职能的重要手段和经济基础.目前我国财政状况相当严峻,财政风险已逐渐凸现.与中央政府相比,我国地方政府运行困难更大,而与之相伴的财政风险的危害也更大,并且具有向上级传导风险的特性,从而有可能给国家公共财政体系带来各类风险.本文试图从我国地方财政风险的表现形式入手,探索其形成的深层原因,并提出了防范地方财政风险的制度、政策建议.     

More Faust than Frankenstein: the European debate about the precautionary principle and risk regulation for genetically modified crops

This paper analyses the range of risk-related problems that have arisen over the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops and food products in the context of the adoption of the precautionary principle (PP) in Europe. Adoption of the PP was intended to avoid some of the environmental problems that arose from the earlier reactive/preventive regulatory system developed for pesticides and also to encourage public acceptance of the new technology but is failing to achieve either of these aims. It is argued that a distinction needs to be made between interest-based and ethical or valuebased responses to risk issues and different approaches to conflict resolution are needed in each case. The PP can be seen as having allowed ethical and value-based concerns to have a new role in risk debates in contexts where they were previously excluded. Despite journalistic references to 'Frankenstein foods' the major protagonists in the debate about GM crops and foods are more concerned about the Faustian bargain which puts science, technology and the industries that increasingly control them in charge of world food production systems. Rather than abandoning the PP, as has been suggested by some risk analysts, a more balanced approach to incorporating it into risk regulation, coupled to balanced skepticism about the motivations of stakeholders, is outlined as a starting point to break into the current escalating cycle of conflict while also meeting the needs of modern industrial societies.