Risk and Precaution

Alan Randall

2011-02 · Cambridge University Press

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The precautionary principle has been labeled simplistic and the rational approach to decision-making under risk was modeled on well-specified games of chance. How then are we to manage the risks, uncertainties, and 'unknown unknowns' of the real world? In this book, Alan Randall unravels the key controversies surrounding the precautionary principle and develops a new framework that can be taken seriously in policy and management circles. Respecting the complexity of the real world, he defines a justifiable role for the precautionary principle in a risk management framework that integrates precaution with elements of the standard risk management model. This is explained using examples from medicine, pharmacy, synthetic chemicals, nanotechnology, the environment and natural resources conservation. This carefully reasoned but highly accessible book will appeal to readers from a broad range of disciplines, including environmental policy, risk management and cost-benefit analysis.

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Alan Randall is Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Sydney, having served previously at Ohio State University for 25 years, 12 of them as department chair. He specializes in environmental economics and policy, with particular interests in environmental risk; biodiversity, habitat and environmental sustainability; environmental regulation, monitoring, and enforcement; and the benefits and costs of environmental projects and programs. His writings include Making the Environment Count: Selected Essays (Edward Elgar, 1999), Resource Economics: An Economic Approach to Natural Resource and Environmental Policy (Wiley, 1981, 1987; and Elgar, 2010 with John C. Bergstrom), and numerous journal articles. He is active in professional associations and on editorial boards, and has served on the National Research Council standing committee on human dimensions of global change and several NRC panels dealing with environmental policy issues. Professor Randall is a Fellow of three scholarly societies (the American Agricultural Economics Association, the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists), has received Ohio State University Awards for Distinguished Scholarship and Distinguished Faculty Service, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and the Norwegian University of Environment and Life Sciences.