Low probability risks create challenges for individual decisions and potential pressures for government regulation. This article reports original survey evidence regarding the public’s perception and valuation of water-related risks from plastic bottles with BPA, residues in drinking water of...

Examination of estimates of the income elasticity of the value of a statistical life based on international stated preference studies yields an average between 0.94 and 1.05 overall and 0.65 and 0.80 after controlling for covariates. Quantile regression estimates indicate that the income...

Willingness-to-pay values and willingness-to-accept values have received considerable attention, but the role of reference-dependence effects is more diverse. Policies involving cost and risk may have reference point effects with respect to both cost and risk, leading to four potential valuation...

U.S. labor market estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL) were the first revealed preference estimates of the VSL in the literature and continue to constitute the majority of such market estimates. The VSL estimates in U.S. studies consequently may have established a reference point...

This article presents the first meta-analysis documenting the extent of publication selection biases in stated preference estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL). Stated preference studies fail to overcome the publication biases that affect much of the VSL literature. Such biases...

This article estimates whether there is a cancer risk premium for the value of a statistical life (VSL) using stated preference valuations of cancer risks for a large, nationally representative U.S. sample. The present value of an expected cancer case that occurs after a one decade latency...

Policy applications of the value of a statistical life (VSL) often make a benefits transfer assumption that the VSL from one market context is broadly applicable to other contexts as in the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s estimate of $9.1 million based on labor market estimates of VSL. This...

The impact and economic merits of President Biden's Executive Order 13985 on equity depend on how the executive order is implemented. While policy discussion to date has focused on equitable outcomes, we propose framing risk equity policies in terms of equitable risk tradeoff rates based on six...

The considerable literature on the value of a statistical life (VSL) documents the wage-mortality risk tradeoffs for the working population. Regulatory analyses often must monetize risks to populations at the tails of the age distribution. Because of the longer life expectancy for children,...

The most enduring measure of how individuals make personal decisions affecting their health and safety is the compensating wage differential for job safety risk revealed in the labor market via hedonic equilibrium outcomes. The decisions in turn reveal the value of a statistical life (VSL), the...