Our research clarifies the conceptual linkages among willingness to pay for additional safety, willingness to accept less safety, and the value of statistical life (VSL). We present econometric estimates that in the important case of workers' decisions concerning exposure to fatal injury risk...

The authors hypothesize that in industries with relatively high levels of job-related injury risk, workers with longer job tenure will more clearly appreciate the degree of job risk than will newly hired workers, and will thus be more willing to accept lower wages in return for higher workers'...

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...

After developing a conceptual analysis of consumer valuation of multiple risks, we explore both economic and cognitive hypotheses regarding individual risk-taking. Using a sample of over 1,500 consumers, our study ascertains risk-dollar tradeoffs for the risks associated with using an...

Over 250 respondents, graduate students in law and public policy, assessed the risks of climate change and valued climate-change mitigation policies. Many aspects of their behavior were consistent with rational behavior. For example, respondents successfully estimated distributions of...

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 cross...

Increased liability for risks posed by jobs and products has transformed the cost structure of job and product markets. Liability costs used to be an incidental expense; now they are a factor of substantial economic consequence. The costs associated with a more active economic role of liability...

This article uses several within-sample tests to assess whether current seatbelt usage decisions are consistent with the stated preferences of survey respondents. The expressed survey values of statistical life are positively associated with the probability of seatbelt usage and are not...

Situations in which individuals receive information seldom involve scientific consensus over the level of the risk. When scientific experts disagree, people may process the information in an unpredictable manner. The original data presented here for environmental risk judgments indicate a...