Public managers make decisions that may directly or indirectly affect the loss of human life, but there are few empirical analyses of whether and how public managers make tradeoffs among lives and other goods. We survey local government managers in the United States about tradeoffs using a vignette experiment with hypothetical flood scenarios. We find that managers make tradeoffs regarding lives saved compared with other features of the scenario, including project cost and property damage. Public works managers show a greater aversion to fatalities, while city managers and planners appear less averse. Our study also finds evidence of an equity preference.
AndersenL. B.JørgensenT. B.KjeldsenA. M.PedersenL. H.VrangbækK. (2012). Public value dimensions: Developing and testing a multi-dimensional classification. International Journal of Public Administration, 35(11), 715–728.
9.
ArabM.ZeraatiH.Akbari HaghighiF.RavangardR. (2009). A study on the executive managers’ knowledge and performance, and their hospitals preparedness against earthquake events and their relationships at public hospitals (affiliated by Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) 2005-2006). Journal of Health Administration, 11(34), 7–14.
10.
AtzmüllerC.SteinerP. M. (2010). Experimental vignette studies in survey research. Methodology: European Journal of Research Methods for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 6, 128–138.
11.
BerkeP. R.LylesW.SmithG. (2014). Impacts of federal and state hazard mitigation policies on local land use policy. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 34(1), 60–76.
12.
BlessettB.DodgeJ.EdmondB.GoerdelH. T.GoodenS. T.HeadleyA. M.… WilliamsB. N. (2019). Social equity in public administration: A call to action. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2(4), 283–299.
13.
BöhmG. (2008). Introduction to the special issue: Intuition and affect in risk perception and decision making. Judgment and Decision Making, 3, 1–4.
14.
BolinB.KurtzL. C. (2018). Race, class, ethnicity, and disaster vulnerability. In RodriguezH.DonnerW.TrainorJ. E. (Eds.), Handbook of disaster research (pp. 181–203). Springer.
15.
BozemanB. (2002). Public-value failure: When efficient markets may not do. Public Administration Review, 62(2), 145–161.
16.
BozemanB. (2007). Public values and public interest: Counterbalancing economic individualism. Georgetown University Press.
17.
CarlssonF.KatariaM.LampiE. (2011). Do EPA administrators recommend environmental policies that citizens want?Land Economics, 87, 60–74.
18.
CarlssonF.MartinssonP. (2003). Design techniques for stated preference methods in health economics. Health Economics, 12(4), 281–294.
19.
CiglerB. A. (2017). U.S. floods: The necessity of mitigation. State and Local Government Review, 49(2), 127–139.
20.
CookR. D.NachtrheimC. J. (1980). A comparison of algorithms for constructing exact d-optimal designs. Technometrics, 22(3), 315–324.
21.
CorvellecH. (2010). Organizational risk as it derives from what managers value: A practice-based approach to risk assessment. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 18(3), 145–154.
22.
De GraafG.HubertsL.SmuldersR. (2016). Coping with public value conflicts. Administration & Society, 48(9), 1101–1127.
23.
EckerdA.CampbellH.KimY. (2012). Helping those like us or harming those unlike us: Illuminating social processes leading to environmental injustice. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 39(5), 945–964.
24.
EliasN. M.OlejarskiA. M. (Eds.). (2020). Ethics for contemporary bureaucrats: Navigating constitutional crossroads. Routledge.
25.
EpsteinS. (1994). Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious. American Psychologist, 49, 709–724.
26.
EvansS. C.RobertsM. C.KeeleyJ. W.BlossomJ. B.AmaroC. M.GarciaA. M.… ReedG. M. (2015). Vignette methodologies for studying clinicians’ decision-making: Validity, utility, and application in ICD-11 field studies. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 15(2), 160–170.
Fernández-GutiérrezM.Van de WalleS. (2019). Equity or efficiency? Explaining public officials’ values. Public Administration Review, 79(1), 25–34.
30.
FinchC.EmrichC. T.CutterS. L. (2010). Disaster disparities and differential recovery in New Orleans. Population and Environment, 31(4), 179–202.
31.
FinucaneM. L.AlhakamiA.SlovicP.JohnsonS. M. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 13(1), 1–17.
32.
FischerF. (2003). Reframing public policy: Discursive politics and deliberative practices. Oxford University Press.
33.
FredericksonH. G. (2015). Social equity and public administration: Origins, developments, and applications. Routledge.
34.
GelmanA. (2009). Red state, blue state, rich state, poor state: Why Americans vote the way they do-expanded edition. Princeton University Press.
35.
GoodenS. T. (2017). Social equity and evidence: Insights from local government. Public Administration Review, 77(6), 822–828.
36.
GreeneW. H. (1997). Econometric analysis, 1997. Prentice-Hall.
37.
GreenR. T.MorganD. F. (2014). Fulfilling John Rohr’s challenge: Toward a theory of regime values for local governance. Administration & Society, 46(2), 190–198.
38.
GregoryR. S. (2002). Incorporating value trade-offs into community-based environmental risk decisions. Environmental Values, 11(4), 461–488.
39.
GrineskiS.CollinsT. W.ChakrabortyJ.MontgomeryM. (2015). Hazardous air pollutants and flooding: A comparative interurban study of environmental injustice. GeoJournal, 80(1), 145–158.
40.
GuyM. E. (1990). Ethical decision making in everyday work situations. Greenwood Publishing Group.
41.
HaidtJ. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.
42.
HainmuellerJ.HangartnerD.YamamotoT. (2015). Validating vignette and conjoint survey experiments against real-world behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(8), 2395–2400.
43.
HalabyC. N. (2003). Where job values come from: Family and schooling background, cognitive ability, and gender. American Sociological Review, 68, 251–278.
44.
HansV. P.NiggJ. M. (1994). Judgments of responsibilities for disaster consequences (Technical Report No. 38). Newark, DE: Disaster Research Center, University of Delaware.
45.
HayesJ. (2015). Taking responsibility for public safety: How engineers seek to minimise disaster incubation in design of hazardous facilities. Safety Science, 77, 48–56.
46.
HermanssonH. (2019). Disaster response in Turkey: Conditions promoting cross-sectoral collaboration and implications for effectiveness. Administration & Society, 51(7), 1051–1078.
International City/County Management Association. (2014). Final report on the status of women in the profession.
49.
JamesO.JilkeS. R.Van RyzinG. G. (Eds.). (2017). Experiments in public management research: Challenges and contributions. Cambridge University Press.
50.
JarlM.FredrikssonA.PerssonS. (2012). New public management in public education: A catalyst for the professionalization of Swedish school principals. Public Administration, 90(2), 429–444.
51.
JensenJ.YoungsG. (2015). Explaining implementation behaviour of the national incident management system (NIMS). Disasters, 39(2), 362–388.
52.
John PaulP.II. (1995). The gospel of life: [Evangelium vitae]. Random House.
53.
JurkiewiczC. L.NicholsK. L. (2002). Ethics education in the MPA curriculum: What difference does it make?Journal of Public Affairs Education, 8(2), 103–114.
54.
KettlD. F. (1993). Sharing power: Public governance and private markets. Brookings Institution Press.
55.
Kowalski-TrakoflerK. M.VaughtC.ScharfT. (2003). Judgment and decision making under stress: An overview for emergency managers. International Journal of Emergency Management, 1(3), 278–289.
56.
LauriaM.LongM. (2017). Planning experience and planners’ ethics. Journal of the American Planning Association, 83(2), 202–220.
57.
LiangJ. (2018). Regulatory effectiveness and social equity in environmental governance: Assessing goal conflict, trade-off, and synergy. The American Review of Public Administration, 48(7), 761–776.
58.
LiaoK. H. (2014). From flood control to flood adaptation: A case study on the Lower Green River Valley and the City of Kent in King County, Washington. Natural Hazards, 71(1), 723–750.
59.
LoewensteinG.LernerJ. (2003). The role of affect in decision making. In DavidsonR. J.SchererK. R.GoldsmithH. H. (Eds.), Handbook of affective science (pp. 619–642). Oxford University Press.
60.
LouviereJ. J. (1996). Relating stated preference measures and models to choices in real markets: Calibration of the CV responses. In BjornstadD. J.KahnJ. R. (Eds.), The contingent valuation of environmental resources: Methodological issues and research needs (pp. 167–188). Edward Elgar.
61.
LouviereJ. J.HensherD. A.SwaitJ. D. (2000). Stated choice methods: Analysis and applications. Cambridge University Press.
62.
Maynard-MoodyS.MushenoM. (2003). Cops, teachers, counselors: Stories from the front lines of public service. University of Michigan Press.
63.
MayoD.HollanderE. (Eds.). (1991). Acceptable evidence: Science and values in risk management. Oxford University Press.
64.
McGuireM.SilviaC. (2010). The effect of problem severity, managerial and organizational capacity, and agency structure on intergovernmental collaboration: Evidence from local emergency management. Public Administration Review, 70(2), 279–288.
65.
McLoughlinD. (1985). A framework for integrated emergency management. Public Administration Review, 45, 165–172.
66.
McSwiteO. C. (2002). Invitation to public administration. M. E. Sharpe.
MigchelbrinkK.Van de WalleS. (2020). When will public officials listen? A vignette experiment on the effects of input legitimacy on public officials’ willingness to use public participation. Public Administration Review, 80(2), 271–280.
69.
MintzA.ReddS. B.VedlitzA. (2006). Can we generalize from student experiments to the real world in political science, military affairs, and international relations?Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(5), 757–776.
70.
MintzbergH. (1987). The strategy concept I: 5 Ps for strategy. California Management Review, 30, 11–24.
71.
MoynihanD. P.PandeyS. K. (2007). The role of organizations in fostering public service motivation. Public Administration Review, 67(1), 40–53.
72.
MrozekJ. R.TaylorL. O. (2002). What determines the value of life? A meta-analysis. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 21(2), 253–270.
73.
NielsenP. A. (2014). Learning from performance feedback: Performance information, aspiration levels, and managerial priorities. Public Administration, 92, 142–160.
74.
OldenhofL.PostmaJ.PuttersK. (2014). On justification work: How compromising enables public managers to deal with conflicting values. Public Administration Review, 74(1), 52–63.
75.
PeerbolteS. L.CollinsM. L. (2013). Disaster management and the critical thinking skills of local emergency managers: Correlations with age, gender, education, and years in occupation. Disasters, 37(1), 48–60.
76.
PerryJ. L. (1997). Antecedents of public service motivation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7, 181–197.
77.
PerryR. W.LindellM. K. (2006). Wiley pathways emergency planning. John Wiley & Sons.
78.
PetakW. J. (1985). Emergency management: A challenge for public administration. Public Administration Review, 45, 3–7.
79.
PetersonJ. A. (2009). The birth of organized city planning in the United States, 1909–1910. Journal of the American Planning Association, 75, 123–133.
80.
PollittC.BouckaertG. (2004). Public management reform: A comparative analysis. Oxford University Press.
81.
PosnerR. A. (1979). Utilitarianism, economics, and legal theory. The Journal of Legal Studies, 8(1), 103–140.
82.
PosnerR. A. (1985). Wealth maximization revisited. Notre Dame Journal of Ethics & Public Policy, 2, 85–105.
ReddickC. G.DemirT.StreibG. (2020). The professional mind-set of city managers: Implications for public administration. Administration & Society, 52(2), 207–232.
85.
ReshW. G.PittsD. W. (2013). No solutions, only trade-offs? Evidence about goal conflict in street-level bureaucracies. Public Administration Review, 73, 132–142.
86.
RobertsP. S.WernstedtK. (2016). Using climate forecasts across a state’s emergency management network. Natural Hazards Review, 17(3), 05016002.
87.
RobertsP. S.WernstedtK. (2019). Decision biases and heuristics among emergency managers: Just like the public they manage for?The American Review of Public Administration, 49(3), 292–308.
88.
RohrJ. A. (2002). Civil servants and their constitutions. University Press of Kansas.
89.
RossiP. H.NockS. L. (Eds.). (1982). Measuring social judgments: The factorial survey approach. SAGE.
90.
RottenstreichY.HseeC. K. (2001). Money, kisses, and electric shocks: On the affective psychology of risk. Psychological Science, 12, 185–190.
91.
RutgersM. R. (2015). As good as it gets? On the meaning of public value in the study of policy and management. The American Review of Public Administration, 45(1), 29–45.
92.
RutgersM. R.van der MeerH. (2010). The origins and restriction of efficiency in public administration: Regaining efficiency as the core value of public administration. Administration & Society, 42, 755–759.
93.
SandP. H. (2000). The precautionary principle: A European perspective. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 6, 445–458.
94.
SandelM. J. (2012). What money can’t buy: The moral limits of markets. Macmillan.
95.
SandelM. J. (2013). Market reasoning as moral reasoning: Why economists should re-engage with political philosophy. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27, 121–140.
96.
ScottT. A.ThomasC. W. (2017). Unpacking the collaborative toolbox: Why and when do public managers choose collaborative governance strategies?Policy Studies Journal, 45(1), 191–214.
97.
SedgwickD. (2016). Managing collaborative paradox: Examining collaboration between Head Start and the Virginia preschool initiative. Administration & Society, 48(2), 190–215.
98.
SenA. K. (1977). Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 6(4), 317–344.
99.
ShivB.FedorikhinA. (1999). Heart and mind in conflict: The interplay of affect and cognition in consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 278–292.
100.
SlovicP.FinucaneM. L.PetersE.MacGregorD. G. (2002). The affect heuristic. In GilovichT.GriffinD.KahnemanD. (Eds.), Intuitive judgment: Heuristics and biases (pp. 397–420). Cambridge University Press.
101.
SlovicP.FinucaneM. L.PetersE.MacGregorD. G. (2004). Risk as analysis and risk as feelings: Some thoughts about affect, reason, risk, and rationality. Risk Analysis, 24(2), 311–322.
102.
SpicerM. W. (2009). Value conflict and legal reasoning in public administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 314, 537–555.
103.
SunsteinC. R. (1996). Health-health tradeoffs. The University of Chicago Law Review, 63, 1533–1571.
104.
TehraniN. (2004). Road victim trauma: An investigation of the impact on the injured and bereaved. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 17(4), 361–373.
105.
TetlockP. E. (2000). Coping with trade-offs: Psychological constraints and political implications. In LupiaA. (Ed.), Elements of reason: Cognition, choice, and the bounds of rationality (pp. 239–263). Cambridge University Press.
106.
TetlockP. E. (2003). Thinking the unthinkable: Sacred values and taboo cognitions. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7, 320–324.
107.
ThacherD.ReinM. (2004). Managing value conflict in public policy. Governance, 17, 457–486.
108.
TuragaR. M. R.BozemanB. (2005). Red tape and public managers’ decision making. The American Review of Public Administration, 35, 363–379.
109.
UhrJ. (2014). John Rohr’s concept of regime values: Locating theory in public administration. Administration & Society, 46(2), 141–152.
110.
UrbanoR. C. (2014). Public administration ethics: James Svara’s model. Journal of Human Values, 20, 7–17.
111.
Van der WalZ.Van HoutE. T. J. (2009). Is public value pluralism paramount? The intrinsic multiplicity and hybridity of public values. International Journal of Public Administration, 32(3–4), 220–231.
112.
Van ThielS.van der WalZ. (2010). Birds of a feather? The effect of organizational value congruence on the relationship between ministries and quangos. Public Organization Review, 10(4), 377–397.
113.
Van WartM. (1998). Changing public sector values. Garland.
114.
Van WartM.BermanE. (1999). Contemporary public sector productivity values: Narrower scope, tougher standards and new rules of the game. Public Productivity and Management Review, 22(3), 326–347.
115.
VelottiL.JusticeJ. B. (2016). Operationalizing Giddens’s recursive model of accountability. Public Performance & Management Review, 40, 310–335.
116.
VrangbækK. (2009). Public sector values in Denmark: A survey analysis. International Journal of Public Administration, 32(6), 508–535.
117.
WagenaarH. (1999). Value pluralism in public administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 21, 441–449.
118.
WeaverJ.HarkabusL. C.BraunJ.MillerS.CoxR.GriffithJ.MazurR. J. (2014). An overview of a demographic study of United States emergency managers. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95(2), 199–203.
119.
WernstedtK.HershR. (2004). Climate forecasts and flood planning under the reign of ENSO. Natural Hazards Review, 5(2), 97–105.
WitesmanE.WaltersL. (2014). Public service values: A new approach to the study of motivation in the public sphere. Public Administration, 92(2), 375–405.
123.
ZackaB. (2017). When the state meets the street: Public service and moral agency. Harvard University Press.
124.
ZwerinaK.HuberJ.KuhfeldW. F. (1996). A general method for constructing efficient choice designs [Working paper]. Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
