The general interest would require that the use of major equipments be priced at their marginal cost, including all opportunity costs such as congestion and pollution costs. At least, prices should be lowered until full utilization of these equipments is obtained. This is a result that...

The compensation of victims of avoidable incidents incurred in the context of health services delivery is an important concern. In Quebec, the liability plan is one of fault liability. In order to be compensated, the victim must prove to a judge that she suffered from a professional error, that...

Large cities have underground networks of pipes and/or wires for water, sewage, natural gas, electricity and telecommunication services. These networks carry heavy fixed costs that must be shared among users. This problem has specific characteristics that we illustrate with an example. After...

In many domains, opinion plays a very significant role which will not stop growing. It is true more than ever in the environmental and health domains, but also in industrial risks. Is it necessary to worry about it? Won't today's mindset become tomorrow's regulation? We show the characteristics...

This report defines a framework to evaluate and collect data on incidents and accidents occurring in hospitals and to create database at local and national level. Our goals are: 1) to provide a structure for thorough analysis within the hospitals that can be used with the already existing tools...

In order to choose the proper size of an infrastructure and to save as much as possible on investment costs, it is necessary for the responsible party (the Centre in the language of this report) to have access to information that is typically known only by some agents or partners who may use...

Many recent empirical studies have shown that recent cohorts of immigrants to western countries face more hardship than previous cohorts. In Quebec, for instance, the welfare dependency rates of immigrants have steadily increased between 1982 and 1998 and are insensitive to fluctuations in the...

With the collaboration of Benoit Aubert Indeed, the complexity of the concept of risk involves the need for high-level tools in order to allow for effective management. The goal of this document is to acquire a global perspective on the principal risk software. By establishing an analysis grid,...

Il existe un consensus dans la littérature empirique à l'effet que le Canada et le Québec accusent un retard au chapitre de la productivité par rapport aux États-Unis. Toutefois, ce constat est dressé à partir de données agrégées pour l'ensemble de l'économie. Or, il importe de...