Comprehensive study on system design for revision of asbestos health damage relief system

Abstract

Once it was found that long-term exposure to asbestos can cause lung and other diseases, its use in buildings was largely stopped and people who experienced health problems caused by its use began to be compensated. Environmental economist Professor Masahide Sakamoto, Faculty of Commerce, Senshu University, Japan, is working to identify the structural problems of this health damage compensation system and ultimately change the system to ensure people receive the compensation they deserve. Sakamoto's study presents a methodology for designing the system in stages to improve the level of benefits and, in the long-term, will reduce the economic, physical and mental burden on the victims and their families. In addition to eliminating disparity in benefits for asbestos victims Sakamoto wants to put forward a new analytical framework for pollution research. Indeed, environmental economics is behind much of Sakamoto's work. He is also studying the cost-sharing principle for different qualities of pollution and global environmental problems, with reference to the cost-burden principle based on social cost theory by K W Kapp. Furthermore, he is conducting research on institutional design to promote the spread of renewable energy as a way to establish a sustainable socioeconomic system and analysing the structural causes of environmental destruction from the perspective of the history of economic theory.