The effectiveness of helmets in reducing all-terrain vehicle injuries and deaths.

This article examines the effectiveness of helmets in reducing all-terrain vehicle (ATV) related deaths and head injuries, conditional on the occurrence of injury producing accidents. A logit regression model is used to analyze cross-section data on ATV-related fatal and nonfatal injuries, and to determine the factors that are associated with deaths and head injuries. The results suggest that, given an accident resulting in injury or death, helmet use reduces the risk of death by about 42%, and could reduce the likelihood that a given nonfatal injury involves the head by about 64%. Other factors that are associated with the risk of fatality for injury accidents include the use of alcohol or drugs, driving on paved roads, the driver's age and sex, and the vehicle's engine size. A benefit-cost analysis of helmet use is conducted and policy implications are discussed.

Evaluating a basic-needs strategy and population policies: the BACHUE approach.

PIP: The BACHUE model, a dynamic simulation technique developed within the International Labour Organization's World Employment Program, has been applied to the Philippines. The model simulates behavior and consequences in a number of key areas: fertility, marriage, migration, savings and expenditure, and labor force participation for households and a macro-model for demand, ouput, employment, and income. The design and development of the model are discussed in detail. The model was run for a series of 13 experiments ranging from nationlization of modern sectors, increasing self-employment, movement toward labor-intensive techniques, changes in growth rates of various sectors, and a reduction in fertility by 2% over 1976-1985, an increase over the 1% assumed in the base run. Runs R-2 to R-11 all showed that a change in basic needs is associated with significant declines in fertility, largely because of increasing education and decreasing mortality. Better economic conditions in rural areas also reduced migration. R-13 which examined the effects of a family planning program of moderate size on ultimate fertility, showed that even by year 2000 the effects were small. The population is reduced 5% over the run which assumes negative income tax and government subsidies to poor families but the gain in income per adult is less than 4%. Any real improvement in income as the result of family planning will take 40-50 years to achieve. Economic incentives, on the other hand, have much faster demographic results. The models also show that rural-urban migration is responsive to policy changes. Planners are cautioned that the model is not a picture of the entire range of human behavior but is an adjunct for use in analyzing interaction between policies.^ieng

On the evaluation of population and employment policy.

PIP: The Bachue series of planning models, which contain economic, demographic, and where possible social variables integrated into a theoretical schema purporting to represent interrelationships between these variables in the real world, are described as a background for discussion of planning for employment and income distribution. The basic structure of models in the Bachue series is described and illustrated using examples from the model for the Philippines. Bachue-type models are useful for evaluating policies, measuring the cost-effectiveness of policy instruments and the trade-offs between them, and identifying redundancies and complementarities between different policies rather than for generating projections. The models analyze the effects of different types of demographic and economic change in terms of such outputs as employment, income, income distribution and population size and structure. Examples of education, migration, and public works policies from the Philippines are used to show how these analyses are conducted and how their results are interpreted.^ieng