This paper provides a systematic review of the economic analysis of health, safety, and environmental regulations. Although the market failures that give rise to a rationale for intervention are well known, not all market failures imply that market risk levels are too great. Hazard warnings...

We present the first nation wide value of life estimates for the United States at more than one point in time. Our estimates are for every ten years between 1940 and 1980, a period when declines in fatal accident rates were historically unprecedented. Our estimated elasticity of value of life...

A prominent theoretical controversy in the compensating differentials literature concerns unobservable individual productivity. Competing models yield opposite predictions depending on whether the unobservable productivity is safety-related skill or productivity generally. Using five panel waves...

Economists think of medical innovation as a valuable but risky good, producing health benefits but increasing financial risk. This perspective overlooks how innovation can lower physical risks borne by healthy patients facing the prospect of future disease. We present an alternative framework...

Meta-regression estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) controlling for publication selection bias yield bias-corrected estimates of VSL that are higher for labor market studies using the more recent Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) data. These results are borne out by the...

We develop a numerical life-cycle model with choice over consumption and leisure, stochastic mortality and labor income processes, and calibrated to U.S. data to characterize willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality risk reduction. Our theoretical framework can explain many empirical findings in...

The apparently unrelenting growth in the GDP-share of health spending (SHS) has been a perennial issue of policy concern. Does an equilibrium limit exist? The issue has been left open in recent dynamic models which take income growth and population aging as given. We view these variables as...

This paper estimates the effect of early lead exposure on academic achievement and adult earnings. We analyze longitudinal information from individuals attending primary and secondary schools in the city of Arica (in northern Chile). Between 1984 and 1989, Arica received more than 20,000 tons of...

This paper exploits an unusual transportation setting to estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL). We estimate the trade-offs individuals are willing to make between mortality risk and cost as they travel to and from the international airport in Sierra Leone (which is separated from the...

This paper examines the long-term impacts of in-utero and early childhood exposure to ambient air pollution on adult labor market outcomes. We take advantage of a new administrative data set that is uniquely suited for addressing this question because it combines information on individuals'...