Health risk regulation of toxic substances: A revealed preference approach to federal agency decisions.

摘要

Each of the three chapters of this dissertation examines a different aspect of the federal government's management of risks posed by toxic substances.;The first chapter deals with the overall federal regulatory picture. An econometric model measures the revealed preferences of various government agencies for regulating chemical substances based upon the physical properties and various chemical-specific socio-economic variables associated with the substance. The results show that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulate in a way which is largely compatible with expected utility theory, while Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations are contrary to concepts of economic efficiency. For chemicals under the FDA's jurisdiction, highly toxic substances are less likely to be regulated than safer substances, and synthetic substances are more likely to be regulated than equally risky natural substances.;Chapter 2 adds toxicity and chemical specific data the first dataset lacks, and finds that OSHA's preferences would lead it toward population risk minimization, but with a tendency to over-regulate synthetic substances. The apparent opposition to the findings of Chapter 1 is because the standards proposed in the 1989 rulemaking upon which Chapter 2 is based were nullified through judicial appeal.;The final chapter estimates the exposure limit for each substance in OSHA's Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs) program. The findings incidate that PEL stringency is influenced by control costs, worker exposures, and substance toxicity, as expected utility theory predicts. In addition, there is no evidence that PEL stringency is influenced by the synthetic nature of the substance or by political bargaining. Examination of the PELs proposed by OSHA in 1989, on the other hand, reveals a tendency to over-regulate synthetics. Had the proposed exposure limits been upheld, the resulting system would have been less cost-effective, as OSHA attempted to incorporate safety factors into their standards and exposure and cost information was not considered as fully as in the present rules.;The dissertation uses two original and unique datasets to test familiar policy questions to a degree not previously possible. The results show that federal regulation of toxic substances has many defensible features, but there are many improvements which can be made to enhance efficiency and reduce the costs of protecting the public.