What is the appropriate lump-sum compensation for loss of work income in personal injury cases? Since generally future work income is not known with certainty, compensation for its loss must be based on statistical considerations. Typically, courts have based awards on mean or median work...

Courts typically base compensation for loss of income in personal injury cases on either mean or median work income. Yet, quantatively, mean and median incomes are typically very different. For example, in the US median income is 65 percent of mean income. In this paper we use economic theory to...