PAST SEMINARS
Spring 2009 Risk Regulation Seminars
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 - “Is EPA Protecting Public Health? New Directions for Risk Assessment in the Incoming Administration and Beyond”
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Thomas Burke, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
View Article
View Papers (pdf): 1 | 2
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - “Climate Change: Nature and Action”
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Thomas E. Lovejoy, President, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, Washington DC
View Abstract (pdf)
View Articles (pdf): 1 | 2
View Presentation (pdf - 10MB)
Presentation Video Clips (wmv): 1 | 2 | 3
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - “Rethinking Regulation in the Wake of the Financial Crisis”
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: David Moss, John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Boston, MA
Details: In the face of the current economic crisis, there are now many calls for
dramatic reform - and even overhaul - of economic regulation in the
United States. What role should scholars play in this discussion, and
what role can they play? What have been the greatest strengths and
weaknesses in the study of regulation over recent decades, and what
types of new work are most urgently needed? These are the central
questions that will inform the discussion on March 24th.
View Paper (pdf)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - “Risks and Opportunities of Manned and Unmanned Space Flight”
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Molly K. Macauley, Senior Fellow and Director of Academic Programs, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC
View Papers (pdf) 1 | 2 | 3
View Abstract (pdf)
Fall 2008 - Risk Regulation Seminars
The Fels Institute of Government, Penn Program on Regulation, Program on Law, the Environment and the Economy, and the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center at the University of Pennsylvania invite you to attend a RISK REGULATION SEMINAR SERIES. The seminars provides a forum where scholars from across the University of Pennsylvania, along with interested colleagues, students, and friends from outside Penn, will come together to interact with the nation's leading scholars and policymakers working on issues related to catastrophic risks and their implications for public policy.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - "Should Different Regulatory Agencies Use Different Values of Statistical Lives?"
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Lisa Robinson
Topic: "Should Different Regulatory Agencies Use Different Values of Statistical Lives?"
Download Paper (PDF)
Details: The benefits of Federal environmental, health, and safety regulations often result largely from the value of mortality risk reductions. For example, over 80 percent of the monetized benefits of air pollution regulations are attributable to averted premature mortality. Both theory and empirical research suggest that the value of these risk reductions may vary depending on their characteristics (e.g., on whether they are associated with particularly dreaded events, such as terrorism) and on the characteristics of those affected (e.g., their age and income). However, Federal agencies are adopting similar value per statistical life (VSL) estimates despite differences in the risks they regulate. This seminar will explore the VSL estimates used by various U.S. agencies and the potential effects of risk and population differences on these estimates. It will also address the advantages and drawbacks of using estimates tailored to particular regulatory scenarios, which could provide better information on the economic efficiency of policy options but may also raise equity concerns.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - "Re-Regulating the Financial Markets In View of the Government Bailouts"
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Dwight Jaffee,
Willis Booth Professor of Banking, Finance, and Real Estate
Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Download Paper 1 (PDF)
Download Paper 2 (PDF)
Topic: "Re-Regulating the Financial Markets In View of the Government Bailouts"
Details: The subprime crisis has been active now for almost 2 years. The government has used taxpayer resources to bail out extremely large financial firms and now an entire asset class (subprime mortgages). If the resulting moral hazard is left unchecked, even greater crises are likely. Nevertheless, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve have offered
no proposals to reform the regulation of the investment banks and the government-sponsored enterprises. In this presentation, Professor Jaffee will offer a proposal that he argues will (i) minimize the need for a Fed bailout in a future crisis, (ii) effectively maximize the role of market discipline in controlling risky activities, and (iii) maintain the overall efficiency of the US capital markets.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - "The Preemption War: When Federal Bureaucracies Trump Local Juries"
Time: 4:30-6:00 p.m.
Location: G 50, Jon Huntsman Hall, The Wharton School
Speaker: Thomas O. McGarity, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Administrative Law
The University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Topic: "The Preemption War: When Federal Bureaucracies Trump Local Juries"
Download Flyer for Book (PDF)
Download excerpt from Book(PDF)
Details: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has, during the George W. Administration, dramatically departed from its traditional hands-off policy with regard to federal preemption of state common law claims in the context of pharmaceuticals approved by that agency. No substantive change in the relevant statute, regulations or case law has prompted the agency's aggressive new stance on preemption. Rather, it is primarily motivated by the outgoing Administration's decision to bypass Congress in its eagerness to implement a long-standing "tort reform" agenda.
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether the Administration's position that state common law failure to warn cases pose such a clear obstacle to FDA's accomplishment of its statutory goals that such claims are preempted by the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. This is case represents a major skirmish in the ongoing "preemption war" that has been waged since the Supreme Court's landmark Cipollone decision, in which it held that the word "requirement" in a federal cigarette labeling law's express preemption clause included the duties imposed by state common law.
The Bush Administration did not limit its aggressive efforts to preempt state tort law to FDA. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Federal Railroad Commission have adopted similar stances under their statutes, all of which contain express preemption clauses.
My presentation will describe the ongoing preemption war and analyze the relevant issues in the context of federal regulation of pharmaceutical products. As I argue in greater detail in my forthcoming book, "The Preemption War: When Federal Bureaucracies Trump Local Juries, the outcome of this war is critical to the ability of the common law to provide corrective justice to injured plaintiffs and protective justice for those of us who have not yet been injured but are at risk from products and activities that are otherwise subject to federal regulation.