Catastrophic Risk: or the Economics of Being Scared

  • David Collard
Chapter

Abstract

A catastrophic risk exists when there is a chance (albeit a small chance) of a project going very badly wrong, with extremely severe human and environmental consequences. Should such projects be undertaken? The issue is related to those which Richard Lecomber explored in his Economic Growth Versus the Environment (1975). The empirical analogues of my discussion here are nuclear power stations and certain types of chemical plant.

Keywords

Nuclear Power Station Fault Tree Fault Tree Analysis Catastrophic Risk Subjective Expect Utility 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© David Collard, David Pearce, and David Ulph 1988

Authors and Affiliations

  • David Collard

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