Biases in risk perception potentially have a large effect on insurance and risk-related behavior. The government can alter these perceptions either through informational programs or controlling the risk. Policies that convey a higher risk level generally have the expected effects on insurance...

Insurance catastrophes are increasingly the result of actions by human beings rather than nature. Chief among these insurance changes has been the surge in tort liability insurance costs. Unfortunately, the courts have misunderstood the mechanisms for transmitting these costs throughout the...

This article analyzes tort liability litigation costs using the Texas Department of Insurance Commercial Liability Insurance Closed Claim database for the years 1988–2004. Insurer costs to defend claims in which a suit was filed average $35,000 per claim in 2004$, which corresponds to a share...

This article develops the first measures of age-industry job risks to examine the age variations in the value of statistical life. Because of the greater risk vulnerability of older workers, they face flatter wage-risk gradients than younger workers, which we show to be the case empirically....

To resolve the theoretical ambiguity in the effect of age on the value of statistical life (VSL), this article uses a novel, age-dependent fatal risk measure to estimate age-specific hedonic wage regressions. VSL exhibits an inverted-U shaped relationship with age. In the year 2000...

Revealed preference evidence, especially based on wage-risk tradeoffs in the labor market, provides the primary empirical basis for analyses of the value of statistical life (VSL). This market evidence also provides guidance on how VSL varies with age. While labor market studies have generated...

In this paper, we use housing price changes occurring after the release of a regulatory agency's environmental risk information to estimate the value people place on cancer risk reduction. Using a large original data set on the repeat sales of houses, matched with detailed data on hazardous...