Incentives in Government Provision of Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief

该奖项的目标是帮助提供一个坚实的基础，以推动更全面的方法来评估多方利益攸关方灾害管理和资源分配中的风险权衡。这将通过利用博弈论和前景理论等理论决策框架来实现，并将使用稳健的优化技术来解决围绕灾难的不确定性。该项目将解决研究不足的问题，例如：(a)政府和私营部门在不确定灾害地点和后果的情况下，应如何在应急准备资金和救灾资金之间取得平衡？(b)各国政府应如何分配奖励以减少易受灾害影响的程度？(c)决策者在备灾和救灾时应如何平衡公平、效率和效益？正如2012年国家研究委员会的一份报告所述，“目前还没有一个全面的框架来指导专注于灾难准备、响应和恢复的公私合作。”如果成功，该项目将通过提供见解、实用指南和决策支持工具来帮助解决这一问题，从而在面对灾害时帮助拯救生命和财产。这项研究将涉及许多研究生、本科生和高中生，包括那些来自代表性不足群体的学生。所获得的模型、结果和见解将通过研讨会、会议、出版物、媒体报道和网站与国际、联邦和地方代表分享。

The goal of this award is to help provide a solid foundation for motivating more comprehensive ways to assess the risk tradeoffs in multi-stakeholder disaster management and resource allocation. This will be accomplished by taking advantage of theoretical decision frameworks such as game theory and prospect theory, and will use robust optimization techniques to address the uncertainty that surrounds disasters. This project will address under-studied questions such as: (a) How should governments and private sectors balance between the funding for emergency preparedness and the funding for disaster relief, when they are uncertain about the disaster location and consequences? (b) How should governments distribute incentives to reduce vulnerability to disasters? and (c) How should decision makers balance equity, efficiency, and effectiveness when preparing for and responding to disasters? As a 2012 National Research Council report states, "there is currently no comprehensive framework to guide private-public collaboration focused on disaster preparedness, response, and recovery." If successful, this project will help to address this issue by providing insights, practical guidelines, and decision support tools to help save lives and property in the face of disasters. This research will engage many graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, including those from under-represented groups. The models, results, and insight gained will be shared with international, federal, and local representatives through seminars, conferences, publication, media coverage, and websites.