Content uploaded by Ian Savage
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Ian Savage on Feb 10, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
Annual License Fees and Other Charges for Road Transportation of Hazardous Materials
Abstract
In September 1992 the United States Department of Transportation imposed a $300 annual fee on motor carriers of certain kinds of hazardous materials. The revenue raised will be used to pay for training emergency response personnel. Econometric analysis suggests that accident risk varies significantly depending on the size and type of carrier, and the particular hazardous commodity hauled. An improved system of licenses and other charges which takes these factors into account in determining what should be paid by individual carriers would provide greater incentives for safe operation.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether trucking firms that haul hazardous materials differ from firms who do not haul these goods. It employs a database of 75,000 federal government safety audits of United States motor carriers. We find that hazardous materials firms are five times larger, in terms of annual fleet miles, than non-hazardous materials haulers, and are more likely to be general commodity carriers. Based on Poisson regression analysis, firms that carry hazardous materials exclusively have an accident rate 11% higher than comparable,firms that do not carry these commodities, and arate of fatalities and serious injuries that is 22% higher. Firms that carry hazardous materials in combination with general freight, have an accident rate that is 18% higher and a fatality and injury rate that is 24% higher. Among hazardous materials carriers, accident rates decline with firm size. Private carriers are safer
In adopting the Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act of 1990 (HMTUSA),1 Congress made a finding that “accidents involving the release of hazardous materials are a serious threat to public health and safety.” The various remedial actions required under the act, including the strengthening of the civil and criminal enforcement provisions, clearly reflect a perceived need to strengthen hazardous materials enforcement and to more closely monitor the fitness of motor carriers transporting hazardous materials. The ultimate goal of safe transportation of all hazardous materials shipments from origin to destination is one with which there can be no quarrel. Whether the measures that Congress adopted are suitable, or even likely, to advance that goal is a question that deserves close attention. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) faces a number of very serious questions in its efforts to flesh out the act by the several rulemakings that are required.
This paper deals with specification, estimation and tests of single equation reduced form type equations in which the dependent variable takes only non-negative integer values. Beginning with Poisson and compound Poisson models, which involve strong assumptions, a variety of possible stochastic models and their implications are discussed. A number of estimators and their properties are considered in the light of uncertainty about the data generation process. The paper also considers the role of tests in sequential revision of the model specification beginr ing with the Poisson case and provides a detailed application of the estimators and tests to a model of the number of doctor consultations.
This paper focuses on developing and adapting statistical models of counts (non-negative integers) in the context of panel data and using them to analyze the relationship between patents and R&D expenditures. The model used is an application and generalization of the Poisson distribution to allow for independent variables; persistent individual (fixed or random) effects, and "noise" or randomness in the Poisson probability function. We apply our models to a data set previously analyzed by Pakes and Griliches using observations on 128 firms for seven years, 1968-74. Our statistical results indicate clearly that to rationalize the data, we need both a disturbance in the conditional within dimension and a different one, with a different variance, in the marginal (between) dimension. Adding firm specific variables, log book value and a scientific industry dummy, removes most of the positive correlation between the individual firm propensity to patent and its R&D intensity. The other new finding is that there is an interactive negative trend in the patents - R&D relationship, that is, firms are getting less patents from their more recent R&D investments, implying a decline in the "effectiveness" or productivity of R&D.