Procedural Fairness, Return to Work, and the Decision to Dispute in Workers' Compensation

This study investigates how injured workers evaluate the fairness of the workers' compensation claims process and how that evaluation affects the decision to formally dispute their claim. Survey and administrative data are used to test a model where individuals are hypothesized to base their overall impression of the fairness of the process based on dimensions of procedural justice criteria. They are then hypothesized to decide whether to formally dispute the claim based on a combination of procedural fairness concerns and whether or not they returned to work with the same employer. The implications of the results for structuring the workers' compensation claims process are then discussed.     

The need for a strategic approach on the railways to the management of the vehicle–track interface

Network Rail's decision in 2003 to bring track maintenance back in-house was long-overdue recognition that responsibility for safety on Britain's railways cannot be abdicated – but there was more to it than that. The accidents at Hatfield and Potter's Bar (both in Hertfordshire, UK), in particular, had exposed very vividly how privatisation had encouraged each now separated and competing part of the industry to operate in its own interests: records, data and expertise were fragmented, and track and train operators alike each sought to minimise their individual costs in isolation. This paper argues from a systems analysis perspective that, on vehicle and track maintenance at least, the overall costs to the industry are in such circumstances likely to be higher than if the various parties were to work together towards minimising total track and train maintenance costs between them. Far from increasing efficiency, privatisation had the effect of reducing it.     

Conditions and intervention strategies for the deliberate acceleration of socio-technical transitions: lessons from a comparative multi-level analysis of two historical case studies in Dutch and Danish heating

ABSTRACT

Policy-oriented transition frameworks such as Strategic Niche Management, Transition Management, and Technological Innovation Systems offer limited analytical traction on deliberately accelerated socio-technical transitions. Using the Multi-Level Perspective as guiding framework, we therefore inductively explore the political acceleration of socio-technical transitions by investigating two deliberately accelerated heating transitions: the transition from coal and oil to natural gas in the Netherlands (1948–1973), and the transition from oil to district heating in Denmark (1945–1990), to draw lessons about the conditions and intervention strategies that facilitate rapid socio-technical change. We find that both cases were characterised by weakened regimes, stabilised niche-innovations, focusing events, and consensus between policymakers and business actors. User resistance was also low in both cases, partly because of public policies. Different focusing events in each case produced problem-driven versus opportunity-driven transition pathways; the former destabilised existing regimes but generated future-oriented uncertainty, while the latter facilitated rapid closure.     

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND EXPERIENCE RATING: INSURANCE VERSUS EFFICIENCY*

Unemployment insurance (UI) distorts firms' layoff decisions by reducing the cost of laying off workers. To dampen this increase, it has been suggested that UI should be financed with an experience‐rated tax. Despite the fact that increasing the level of experience rating can reduce unemployment, it can reduce the insurance coverage workers receive. With high experience rating, firms may reduce their severance payments by more than the UI benefit. We build a model where competitive firms offer contracts with severance payments to risk‐averse workers. Frictions in the labor market lead to incomplete insurance. This article shows that less than full‐experience rating enables the government to increase the insurance coverage workers receive. Welfare implications are also investigated.     

Negative externalities on property values resulting from water impairment: The case of the Pigeon River Watershed

The objective of this research was to determine whether willingness to bear the negative externality from water quality impairment differs between those who do and those who do not receive economic benefit from the impairment source. Differences were tested using a hedonic analysis of ambient water quality in two discrete housing markets in the Pigeon River Watershed, which have been polluted by the operation of a paper mill. The results suggest that North Carolina residents residing in subwatersheds with impaired portions of the Pigeon River, who experience economic benefit from the paper mill in addition to its harmful effects on water quality, do perceive the pollution as a negative externality. In contrast, the effects of both the degraded river and its contributing streams on property values are perceived as negative externalities by watershed residents in Tennessee who experience only harmful effects from the pollution. Differences in willingness to bear the water-impairment externality were not indicated by variables representing view of and proximity to impaired water bodies. The results suggest that the perception of water quality to which property owners implicitly apply value should be considered when establishing water-quality regulations.     

There is no ‘I’ in team: Career concerns,risk‐taking incentives,and team outcomes

The National Basketball Association contracting rules provide plausibly exogenous variation in career concerns near contract end. We use this setting to study how individual career concerns affect risk‐taking behavior and can sabotage team performance. Using the frequency and duration of player injuries from 1991 to 2013 we measure individual risk‐taking behavior. We find that the average player's likelihood of missing a game due to injury falls by 0.06 percentage points (or over 100% relative to the mean injury rate) in the final 3 months of his contract, and when missing games due to injury is unavoidable, his recovery time drops by 22 days. However, “elite” players with virtually no career concerns actually miss more games due to injury. Finally, we find that elite players missing too many games and “average” players playing before healthy, combine to hurt team performance. For each additional player in the last 3 months on contract, the win probability for that team falls by over 2.6%.     

A brief technology assessment of the Carbon Dioxide effect

Significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are occuring as a result of fossil fuel combustion. More than a four-fold increase over preindustrial levels may occur by the year 2100. Heating of the atmosphere, changes in precipitation patterns and global storm paths, and other resulting effects are sure to cause significant social changes. This article is essentially a methodological case study demonstrating a useful but inexpensive type of technology assessment. It summarizes current research findings on “the CO₂ effect,” and presents hitherto unpublished findings that resulted from a brief but systems-oriented approach. These findings suggest that most published forecasts of phenomena associated with a CO₂ buildup may be systematically low because various positive feedback relationships are not reflected.