How Safe Are We? Balancing Risks, Benefits, and Costs
Featuring John Mueller, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, Senior Research Scientist, Mershon Center, Ohio State University; and Mark G. Stewart, Visiting Fellow, Cato Institute, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Newcastle, Australia; moderated by Laura Odato, Director of Government Affairs, Cato Institute.
Join us for a non-technical primer on risk and cost-benefit analysis with applications to policies ranging from homeland security to climate change. Our panel will consider key issues as probability neglect, cost neglect, and acceptable risk. In general, the place to begin is not with the perennial question, “Are we safer?” but rather with the rarely asked, “How safe are we?” Increases in domestic homeland security spending since 9/11 exceed $1 trillion. How many post-9/11 security programs reduce risk enough to justify their cost? Panelists John Mueller and Mark Stewart are the authors of Terror, Security, and Money (Oxford University Press, 2011).
