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Abstract:
The economic approach to valuing risks to life focuses on risk-money tradeoffs for very small risks of death, or the value of statistical life (VSL). These VSL levels will generally exceed the optimal insurance amounts. A substantial literature has estimated the wage-fatality risk tradeoffs, implying a median VSL of $7 million for U.S. workers. International evidence often indicates a lower VSL, which is consistent with the lower income levels in less developed countries. Preference heterogeneity also generates different tradeoff rates across the population as people who are more willing to bear risk will exhibit lower wage-risk tradeoffs.

value of life, risk regulation

Abstract:
A substantial literature over the past thirty years has evaluated tradeoffs between money and fatality risks. These values in turn serve as estimates of the value of a statistical life. This article reviews more than 60 studies of mortality risk premiums from ten countries and approximately 40 studies that present estimates of injury risk premiums. This critical review examines a variety of econometric issues, the role of unionization in risk premiums, and the effects of age on the value of a statistical life. Our meta-analysis indicates an income elasticity of the value of a statistical life from about 0.5 to 0.6. The paper also presents a detailed discussion of policy applications of these value of a statistical life estimates and related issues, including risk-risk analysis.

Abstract:
A substantial literature over the past thirty years has evaluated tradeoffs between money and fatality risks. These values in turn serve as estimates of the value of a statistical life. This article reviews more than 60 studies of mortality risk premiums from ten countries and approximately 40 studies that present estimates of injury risk premiums. This critical review examines a variety of econometric issues, the role of unionization in risk premiums, and the effects of age on the value of a statistical life. Our meta-analysis indicates an income elasticity of the value of a statistical life from about 0.5 to 0.6. The paper also presents a detailed discussion of policy applications of these value of a statistical life estimates and related issues, including risk-risk analysis.

Abstract:
After three decades of experience with extensive government regulation and oversight of health, safety and environmental matters, we have reason to believe that those measures have largely failed to fulfill their initial promise, but many of the initial promises were infeasible goals of a "zero-risk" society. Economic findings with respect to risk-risk tradeoffs highlight the fallacies inherent in government's zero-risk mentality. Agencies that make an unbounded financial commitment to safety frequently are sacrificing individual lives. There continues to be major opportunities to improve regulatory performance by targeting existing inefficiencies and using market mechanisms (rather than strict command-and-control mechanisms) to achieve regulatory goals.

risk, cost-benefit analysis, risk-risk analysis, health regulation, safety regulation, value of a statistical life

Abstract:
Proposed tort reforms have focused on punitive damages and noneconomic damages, each of which pose problems for jury decision making. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in State Farm v. Campbell will greatly limit very large punitive damages awards, and will affect smaller punitive awards to a lesser degree. Noneconomic damages caps enacted by state legislatures have greatly enhanced insurance market performance. Insurers operate within the context of a highly imperfect, regulated market in which there is substantial price rigidity induced by regulation. Reform efforts should strive to establish greater predictability and stability in these awards components rather than simply being concerned with imposing specific numerical caps.

Abstract:
Proposed tort reforms have focused on punitive damages and noneconomic damages, each of which pose problems for jury decision making. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in State Farm v. Campbell will greatly limit very large punitive damages awards, and will affect smaller punitive awards to a lesser degree. Noneconomic damages caps enacted by state legislatures have greatly enhanced insurance market performance. Insurers operate within the context of a highly imperfect, regulated market in which there is substantial price rigidity induced by regulation. Reform efforts should strive to establish greater predictability and stability in these awards components rather than simply being concerned with imposing specific numerical caps.

tort reform, insurance, punitive damages, pain and suffering

Abstract:
This paper presents the first empirical analysis that demonstrates that juries differ from judges in awarding punitive damages. Our review of punitive damages awards of $100 million or more identified 63 such awards, of which juries made 95 percent. These jury awards are highly unpredictable and are not significantly correlated with compensatory damages. Using data on jury and bench verdicts from the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996, we find that juries are significantly more likely to award punitive damages than are judges and award higher levels of punitive damages. Jury awards are also less strongly related to compensatory damages. The differential effect of juries is most pronounced among the largest awards. Juries also tend to award higher compensatory damages, which in turn boost the punitive damages award. The findings are robust with respect to controlling for self-selection of jury or bench trial.

Abstract:
A substantial recent literature has documented the inability of jurors to make sound decisions with respect to punitive damages, particularly for health, safety, and environmental torts. Included in this literature are experimental studies documenting the better performance of judges than jurors for the same case scenarios. Recent research by Eisenberg et al. (2002) has suggested, however, that there is no significant difference between the performance of judges and jurors with respect to punitive damages. Our paper provides a critical assessment of this finding as well as a detailed statistical analysis of the state court data upon which the Eisenberg et al. claim is based. Our analysis starts with a review of very large punitive damages awards. We found that 98 percent of the large punitive damages awards were made by juries and only two percent by judges. The jury awards in these large cases were highly unpredictable and were weakly correlated with compensatory damages. We then analyze data from the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1996, which is the data set used by Eisenberg et al. Our analysis of the state court data set contradicts Eisenberg et al.'s analysis. We find that juries are significantly more likely to award punitive damages than are judges; juries award higher levels of punitive damages; and juries are largely responsible for extremely large punitive damages awards. Juries also tend to award higher compensatory damages, which in turn will often boost the punitive damages award. This paper also discusses the reasons why our results contradict the findings by Eisenberg et al.

Abstract:
Our survey results demonstrate that targeted screening of airline passengers raises conflicting concerns of efficiency and equity. Support for profiling increases if there is a substantial reduction in avoided delays to other passengers. The time cost and benefit components of targeting affect support for targeted screening in an efficiency-oriented manner. Non-white respondents are more reluctant than whites to support targeting or to be targeted. Terrorism risk assessments are highly diffuse, reflecting considerable risk ambiguity. People fear highly severe worst case terrorism outcomes, but their best estimates of the risk are more closely related to their lower bound estimates than their upper bound estimates. Anomalies evident in other risk perception contexts, such as hindsight biases and embeddedness effects, are particularly evident for terrorism risk beliefs.

Crime and Criminal Justice, Human Rights, International Security, Law and Legal Institutions

Abstract:
Estimates of the statistical value of life have become the standard reference point for valuing risks to life and health in regulatory contexts. Attempts to use these estimates in courtroom settings as a measure of compensation are misdirected. The value-of-life estimates are based on a deterrence or prevention concept rather than an insurance concept and will provide overinsurance to accident victims. Value-of-life estimates are, however, pertinent for use as reference points in assessing liability. Possible examples of where it can be used include cases such as the Ford Pinto and GMC truck burn cases.

Abstract:
As economists, we believe that the Second Circuit's ruling, by not allowing the consideration of important information about the relationships between the benefits and costs of alternatives, is economically unsound. In particular, we believe that, as a general principle, regulators cannot make rational decisions unless they are allowed to compare costs and benefits and to use the results, along with other factors as appropriate, to choose among alternatives.

To the extent permissible under the statute and case law, EPA should be allowed to consider benefits and costs in establishing rules for implementing s316(b). The Court's allowing EPA to consider benefits and costs would improve both the decision making process - by making it more transparent - and the regulatory decisions by allowing important relevant information to be considered explicitly.

Abstract:
This paper provides a preview of a new Joint Center book on the relationship between regulation and litigation.

Abstract:
This paper provides an analysis of 64 punitive damages awards of at least $100 million. Based on an inventory of these cases, there is evidence that these blockbuster awards are highly concentrated geographically, as two states account for 27 of the 64 awards. The awards also have been rising substantially over time, with the majority of these blockbuster awards taking place since 1999. An assessment of the current status of the blockbuster punitive damages awards indicates that most of these awards have been appealed, but the reversal of these punitive damages awards is the exception rather than the rule. Many large punitive damages awards are settled without any appeal. The ratio limits outlined in State Farm v. Campbell will affect over 90% of the blockbuster awards and over 90% of the damages associated with these awards if a ratio of 1.0 becomes the upper limit on punitive damages.

punitive damages, blockbuster, awards

Abstract:
This article uses the complete property-casualty insurance files of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners from 1984 to 1991 to assess the effect of medical malpractice reforms pertaining to damages levels and the degree to which these damages are insurable. Limits on noneconomic damages were most influential in affecting insurance market outcomes. Several punitive damages variables specifically affected the medical malpractice insurance market, including limits on punitive damage levels, prohibitions of the insurability of punitive damages, and prohibition of punitive damages awards. Estimates for insurance losses, premiums, and loss ratios indicate effects of reform in the expected directions, where the greatest constraining effects were for losses. The quantile regression analysis of losses indicates that punitive damages reforms and limits were most consequential for firms at the high end of the loss spectrum. Tort reforms also enhanced insurer profitability during this time period.

Abstract:
This paper uses the complete property and casualty insurance files of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners from 1984-1991 to assess the effect of medical malpractice reforms pertaining to damages levels and the degree to which these damages are insurable. Limits on noneconomic damages were most influential in affecting insurance market outcomes. Several punitive damages variables specifically affected the medical malpractice insurance market, including limits on punitive damage levels, prohibitions of the insurability of punitive damages, and prohibition of punitive damages awards. Estimates for insurance losses, premiums, and loss ratios indicate effects of reform in the expected directions, where the greatest constraining effects were for losses. The quantile regression analysis of losses indicates that punitive damages reforms and limits were most consequential for firms at the high end of the loss spectrum. Tort reforms also enhanced insurer profitability during this time period.

medical malpractice insurance, tort reform, punitive damages, noneconomic damages

Abstract:
The worker fatality risk variable constructed for this article uses BLS data on total worker deaths by both occupation and industry over the 1992-97 period rather than death risks by occupation or industry alone, as in past studies. The subsequent estimates using 1997 CPS data indicate a value of life of $4.7 million for the full sample, $7.0 million for blue-collar males, and $8.5 million for blue-collar females. Unlike previous estimates, these values account for the influence of clustering of the job risk variable and compensating differentials for both workers` compensation and nonfatal job risks. (JEL J3, I1)

Abstract:
The worker fatality risk variable constructed for this paper uses BLS data on total worker deaths by both occupation and industry over the 1992-1997 period rather than death risks by occupation or industry alone, as in past studies. The subsequent estimates using 1997 CPS data indicate a value of life of $4.7 million for the full sample, $7.0 million for blue-collar males, and $8.5 million for blue-collar females. Unlike previous estimates, these values account for the influence of clustering of the job risk variable and compensating differentials for both workers' compensation and nonfatal job risks.

Abstract:
The current debate over cost-benefit concerns in agencies' evaluations of government regulations is not so much whether to consider costs and benefits at all but rather what belongs in the estimated costs and benefits themselves. Overlaid is the long-standing concern that the distribution of costs and benefits needs some consideration in policy evaluations. In a recent article in the University of Chicago Law Review, Robert Frank and Cass Sunstein proposed a relatively simple method for adding distributional concerns to policy evaluation that enlarges the typically constructed estimates of the individual's willingness to pay for safer jobs or safer products. One might pay more for safety if it were the result of a government regulation that mandated greater safety across-the-board. The reason, Frank and Sunstein argue, for enlarging current estimates is that someone who takes a safer job or buys a safer product gives up wages or pays a higher price, which then moves him or her down in the ladder of income left over to buy other things. Alternatively, a worker who is given a safer job via a government regulation has no relative income consequences because all affected workers have lower pay. We show that when considering the core of the Frank and Sunstein proposal carefully one concludes that current regulatory evaluations should be left alone because there is no reason to believe that relative positional effects are important either to personal decisions in general or to currently constructed cost-benefit calculations of government regulations in particular.

One of the practical problems with trying to consider relative position of income and consumption when estimating willingness to pay is that there is no unique way to ascertain from a statistical model the person's actual social reference group. A researcher must specify ex ante a reference group and then net out the behavioral effects of a possibly incorrectly attributed reference group's behavior on the individual. There is no well-established result from survey data for a typical person's economic reference group. Moreover, the econometric literature generally finds that reference group or social interaction effects are small and easily ignored, perhaps because the relative positional effects of workplace or product safety offset possible reference group effects on residual income (income net of the implicit cost of the extra product or job safety).

It is also the case that Frank and Sunstein's recommended increase in the value of willingness to pay for safety used in current regulatory evaluations is already considered. Regulatory evaluations often include a pessimistic and an optimistic value of likely benefits, and Frank and Sunstein's suggested revised value of willingness to pay is still below the optimistic case that carefully formulated cost-benefit studies use. It is easy to show that almost doubling the estimated value of a statistical life would have an inconsequential effect on the economic desirability of a broad set of regulatory policies.

Finally, we argue that the most important refinements one could make in the area of regulatory evaluation would be for agencies involved to adhere more to the framework of what is generally considered a carefully done cost-benefit study, and for agencies to make greater actual use of appropriately done cost-benefit studies when recommending regulations.

Abstract:
A sample of almost 500 jury-eligible citizens considered a series of experimental situation involving accidents. The juror sample did not properly apply negligence rules, as their errors were particularly great for low probability-large loss cases. They also penalized corporations for undertaking corporate risk analyses that seek to trade off cost versus risk reduction benefits. Jurors' damages assessments were also more prone to error than were responses by a sample of state judges. Judges were less prone to erroneous risk beliefs and less subject to the zero risk mentality.

Abstract:
We analyze smoking risk beliefs and smoking behavior using individual data from 1997 for the United States and 1998 for Massachusetts. Smokers and adults more generally overestimate the lung cancer risks of smoking and the mortality risks and life expectancy loss. Higher risk beliefs decrease the probability of starting to smoke and increase the probability of quitting among those who begin. Better educated smokers have lower and more accurate risk beliefs, but education decreases the probability of smoking. Higher state cigarette taxes correlate with risk beliefs but not with smoking status. The uninsured are especially likely to remain current smokers.

Abstract:
We analyze smoking risk beliefs and smoking behavior using individual data from 1997 for the United States and 1998 for Massachusetts. Smokers and adults more generally overestimate the lung cancer risks of smoking and the mortality risks and life expectancy loss. Higher risk beliefs decrease the probability of starting to smoke and increase the probability of quitting among those who begin. Better-educated smokers have lower and more accurate risk beliefs, but education decreases the probability of smoking. Higher state cigarette taxes correlate with risk beliefs, but not with smoking status. The uninsured are especially likely to remain current smokers.

smoking, risk beliefs, smoking risk, smoking behavior

Abstract:
Proposals to provide juries with specific numerical instructions for setting punitive damages should bring greater rationality to punitive damages awards. This approach is tested using evidence from 353 jury-eligible citizens who applied these formulas to a series of legal cases.Few respondents assessed the correct values of punitive damages from the standpoint of deterrence. Anchoring effects of appeals by a plaintiff's lawyer or media coverage of similar awards lead respondents to abandon the punitive damages formula and set punitive damages based on the anchor. Minorities and the less well-educated were particularly unwilling or unable to apply the recommended punitive damages formulas.

Abstract:
Recent proposals to provide juries with specific numerical instructions for setting punitive damages should bring greater rationality to punitive damages awards. This approach is tested using evidence from 353 jury-eligible citizens who were asked to apply these formulas to a series of legal cases. Only a small minority of the respondents assessed the correct values of punitive damages from the standpoint of deterrence. Anchoring effects of appeals by a plaintiff's lawyer or media coverage of similar awards lead respondents to abandon the punitive damages formula and set punitive damages based on the anchor. Minorities and the less well-educated were particularly unwilling or unable to apply the recommended punitive damages formulas. Even with the aid of explicit mathematical formulas for setting punitive damages, jury awards for punitive damages are likely to remain highly variable and unpredictable.

Abstract:
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 policies often can address informational failures. Some market failures may be exacerbated by government policies, particularly those embodying conservative risk assessment practices. Labor market estimates of the value of statistical life provide a useful reference point for the efficient risk tradeoffs for government regulation. Guided by restrictive legislative mandates, regulatory policies often strike a quite different balance with an inordinately high cost per life saved. The risk-risk analysis methodology enables analysts to assess the net safety implications of policy efforts. Inadequate regulatory enforcement and behavioral responses to regulation may limit their effectiveness, while rising societal wealth will continue to generate greater levels of health and safety.

health and safety, regulation, value of life, environment, risk

Abstract:
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 policies often can address informational failures. Some market failures may be exacerbated by government policies, particularly those embodying conservative risk assessment practices. Labor market estimates of the value of statistical life provide a useful reference point for the efficient risk tradeoffs for government regulation. Guided by restrictive legislative mandates, regulatory policies often strike a quite different balance with an inordinately high cost per life saved. The risk-risk analysis methodology enables analysts to assess the net safety implications of policy efforts. Inadequate regulatory enforcement and behavioral responses to regulation may limit their effectiveness, while rising societal wealth will continue to generate greater levels of health and safety.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
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 temperature increases in Boston by 2100. The median value of best estimates was 1-3 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, people with higher risk estimates, whether for temperature or related risks (e.g., hurricane intensities) offered more to avoid warming. Median willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid global warming was $0.50/gallon, and 3% of income. And important scope tests (e.g., respondents paid more for bigger accomplishments) were passed. However, significant behavioral propensities also emerged. For example, accessibility of neutral information on global warming boosted risk estimates. Warming projections correlated with estimates for unrelated risks, such as earthquakes and heart attacks. The implied WTP for avoidance was much greater when asked as a percent of income than as a gas tax, a percent thinking bias. Home team betting showed itself; individuals predicting a Bush victory predicted smaller temperature increases. In the climate-change arena, behavioral decision tendencies are like a fun-house mirror: They magnify some estimates and shrink others, but the contours of rational decision remain recognizable.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
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 temperature increases in Boston by 2100. The median value of best estimates was 1-3 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, people with higher risk estimates, whether for temperature or related risks (e.g., hurricane intensities) offered more to avoid warming. Median willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid global warming was $0.50/gallon, and 3% of income. And important scope tests (e.g., respondents paid more for bigger accomplishments) were passed. However, significant behavioral propensities also emerged. For example, accessibility of neutral information on global warming boosted risk estimates. Warming projections correlated with estimates for unrelated risks, such as earthquakes and heart attacks. The implied WTP for avoidance was much greater when asked as a percent of income than as a gas tax, a percent thinking bias. Home team betting showed itself; individuals predicting a Bush victory predicted smaller temperature increases. In the climate-change arena, behavioral decision tendencies are like a fun-house mirror: They magnify some estimates and shrink others, but the contours of rational decision remain recognizable.

Economics - Economic and Econometric Theory, Economics - Microeconomics, Environment and Natural Resources, Regulation

Abstract:
The payment of hedonic damages based on the value of statistical life will lead to excessive insurance and excessive deterrence in personal injury cases. The value of statistical life can play a constructive role in assessing negligence and liability. The recent proposal that wrongful death victims be awarded hedonic damages in addition to the standard economic damages and noneconomic damages amounts to compensate for the harm to survivors will produce rampant double counting and will transform wrongful death awards in a very inefficient and undesirable manner. Recent attempts to set compensation levels by chaining the value of statistical life with measures of happiness and disability reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of statistical life literature.

hedonic damages, value of statistical life, wrongful death

Abstract:
A minimal test of the desirability of regulations is that they further their primary objectives. In some cases, regulations designed to reduce health, safety, and environmental risks can actually increase risk, especially when such regulations lead to significant reductions in private expenditures on life-saving investments. This monograph assesses the mortality implications of the costs of a group of twenty-four federal health, safety, and environmental regulations.

We find that an unintended increase in risk is likely to result from the majority of regulations examined here. A more positive result is that aggregate mortality risk falls for the entire set of regulations, primarily because a few regulations yield large reductions in risk.

We believe that such analysis can help to highlight the potential problems with inefficient regulation and can serve as a useful complement to other forms of analysis, such as benefit-cost analysis. Specifically, we believe that an assessment of the mortality implications of regulatory costs can and should be used to help identify those regulations whose primary purpose is to save lives but that may have the unintended consequence of actually increasing mortality. In such perverse cases, Congress and the regulatory agencies should seriously consider alternatives that would yield higher levels of economic welfare and save more lives.

Abstract:
Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on reported incurred losses, this paper examines the long run effects using a comprehensive sample by state of individual firms writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984-2003. The long run effects of reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects, as five year developed losses and ten year developed losses are below the initially reported incurred losses for those years following reform measures. The quantile regressions show the greatest effects of joint and several liability limits, noneconomic damages caps, and punitive damages reforms for the firms that are at the high end of the loss distribution. These quantile regression results show stronger, more concentrated effects of the reforms than do the OLS and fixed effects estimates for the entire sample.

medical malpractice, tort reform, insurance

Abstract:
Four years ago, Magat, Huber, Viscusi, and Bell (2000) reported pretest results that introduced an iterative choice approach to valuing water quality improvements. This paper applies this approach to a nationally representative sample of over 1,000 respondents. We find that the method provides stable, policy relevant estimates of the amount people are willing to pay for improvements. Willingness to pay for a one percentage point improvement in water quality has a mean value of $23.17 with a median of $15, and appropriately increases with family income, age, education, and the likelihood of using lakes or rivers. In addition, the method passes an external scope test demonstrating that greater gains in the percent of water rated "good" increase the likelihood that the respondent will choose the alternative with better water quality. We tested the appropriateness of a national web-based panel of respondents and find that the Knowledge Networks sample does not fall prey to difficulties that could plague such panels. First, the sampled web-based panel matches United States demographics very well, and predictors of sample responsiveness, such as the likelihood to take a long time to respond to the survey, have minimal impact on the critical estimates of the value of good water. Second, the results are quite insensitive to doubly censored regression that accounts for the portion of respondents who indicated an unboundedly high or low estimate for the value of cleaner lakes and rivers. Finally, the stability of the benefit values is further demonstrated by the selection-corrected estimates that adjust for people invited to participate but who did not successfully complete the survey.

water quality, environmental benefits, survey, contingent valuation

Abstract:
Risk equity serves as the purported rationale for a wide range of inefficient policy practices, such as the concern that hypothetical individual risks not be too great. This paper proposes an alternative risk equity concept in terms of equitable tradeoffs rather than equity in risk levels. Equalizing the cost per life saved across policy contexts will save additional lives and will give fair treatment to risks arising in a variety of domains. Equitable tradeoffs will also benefit minorities who currently are disadvantaged by politically based inefficient policies.

Abstract:
As we understand it, the D.C. Circuit did not allow the EPA to consider the costs of complying with ozone and PM NAAQS. As we further understand it, this legal ruling can be overturned only by this Court. As economists, we believe that the D.C. Circuit's ruling not allowing the EPA to consider important information relating to the consequences of its regulatory actions is economically unsound. Without delving into the legal aspects of the case, we present below why we think the Court should allow the EPA to consider costs in setting standards. In particular, we believe that, as a general principle, regulators should be allowed to consider explicitly the full consequences of their regulatory decisions. These consequences include the regulation's benefits, costs, and any other relevant factors.

EPA, D.C. Circuit, regulatory actions

Abstract:
This article introduces an iterative choice procedure for valuing inland water quality. This approach breaks up the valuation into a series of component tasks. The water quality ladder approach is not valid empirically. Consequently, respondents in Colorado and North Carolina assessed the value of making water quality rated "good" by EPA, which has a value of $22.40 per additional percent improvement. Nonuse and probabilistic use are highly valued. The results also indicate how water quality valuations differ for aquatic environment, edible fish, and swimming, as well as for water that is cloudy, smelly, or polluted by toxics. Minorities are particularly likely to rely upon monitorable water quality attributes.

Abstract:
This paper examines the influence on estimates of the value of statistical life (VSL) of the worker's relative position in the wage distribution and relative position in the life cycle. Whereas past work on relative position effects in the labor market have been based on illustrative hypothetical examples, this paper develops empirical tests using actual market behavior. To test for the effect of relative wage position, we use two different measures: the individual's wage rank in the state and the wage rank by gender in the state. Using the CPS coupled with constructed BLS fatality risk measures by industry and occupation group, we show that inclusion of relative position variables in a canonical wage equation reduces VSL estimates by 25-33%. This effect is the opposite of what the relative position theorists have hypothesized. In contrast, recognition of the worker's relative position within the life cycle raises VSL estimates by up to 20%, especially for older workers.

Abstract:
Using a large data set, the authors find that smokers select riskier jobs, but receive lower total wage compensation for risk than do nonsmokers. This finding is inconsistent with conventional models of compensating differentials. The authors develop a model in which worker risk preferences and job safety performance lead to smokers facing a flatter market offer curve than nonsmokers. The empirical results support the theoretical model. Smokers are injured more often controlling for their job's objective risk and are paid less for these risks of injury. Smokers and nonsmokers, in effect, are segmented labor market groups with different preferences and different market offer curves.

Abstract:
This paper develops a life-cycle model in which workers choose both consumption levels and job fatality risks, implying that the effect of age on the value of life is ambiguous. The empirical analysis of this relationship uses novel, age-dependent fatal and nonfatal risk variables. Workers' value of statistical life exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship over workers' life cycle based on hedonic wage model estimates, age-specific hedonic wage estimates, and a minimum distance estimator. The value of statistical life for a 60-year-old ranges from $2.5 million to $3.0 million - less than half the value for 30- to 40-year-olds.

value of life, job risks, hedonic wage regression, VSLY

Abstract:
This paper develops a life-cycle model in which workers choose both consumption levels and job fatality risks, implying that the effect of age on the value of life is ambiguous. The empirical analysis of this relationship uses novel, age-dependent fatal and nonfatal risk variables. Workers' value of statistical life exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship over workers' life cycle based on hedonic wage model estimates, age-specific hedonic wage estimates, and a minimum distance estimator. The value of statistical life for a 60-year old ranges from $2.5 million to $3.0 million - less than half the value for 30 to 40-year olds.

Abstract:
This article examines the rationality of seatbelt usage using an original data set of 465 adult respondents. People with high stated values of statistical life, who do not smoke, and who have risk beliefs that are highly elastic with respect to actual risks are more likely to use seatbelts, as economic theory predicts. Respondents' stated values of statistical life were similar on average to the value of life range of $2.2 million to $7.9 million computed from their revealed preferences for seatbelt usage, providing empirical support for the mutual consistency of these two approaches.

seatbelts, value of statistical life, risk

Abstract:
Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on insurers' reported incurred losses, this paper examines the long run effects of reforms using the developed losses from a comprehensive sample of insurers writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984-2003. The long run effects of reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects, as five year developed losses and ten year developed losses are below the initially reported incurred losses for those years following reform measures. The quantile regressions show that reforms have the greatest effects for the firms that are at the high end of the loss distribution. The beneficial effects of reforms on developed losses are more pronounced than those obtained from initially-reported losses, suggesting that insurers underestimated the true effects of the reforms.

tort reform, medical malpractice, insurance, insurance losses, insurers' losses

Abstract:
Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on reported incurred losses, this paper examines the long run effects using a comprehensive sample by state of individual firms writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984-2003. The long run effects of reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects, as five year developed losses and ten year developed losses are below the initially reported incurred losses for those years following reform measures. The quantile regressions show the greatest effects of joint and several liability limits, noneconomic damages caps, and punitive damages reforms for the firms that are at the high end of the loss distribution. These quantile regression results show stronger, more concentrated effects of the reforms than do the OLS and fixed effects estimates for the entire sample.

Abstract:
This article provides a response to the opponents of monetization of risk and environmental benefits, such as the authors of "Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing." Putting benefit values in dollar terms ensures that there will be full recognition of these benefits in the policy evaluation process, and also places them on terms comparable to program costs. Much of the article is devoted to advocating the use of the value of statistical life to value health risk reductions from government regulations. The article explores sensitive issues such as the heterogeneity of the value of statistical life with respect to income and age. While the use of a "senior discount" was controversial and involved too great of a discount, there is substantial evidence that there are age variations in the value of statistical life. The article also advocates the continued use of stated preference approaches to valuing environmental benefits, which is in contrast to the critiques of stated preference analyses by those who consider environmental resources to be priceless and by those who believe that all non-use values of environmental benefits are zero.

policy evalution

Abstract:
This article examines revealed rates of time preference for public goods, using environmental quality as the case study. A nationally representative panel-based sample of 2,914 respondents considered a series of 5 conjoint policy choices, yielding 14,570 decisions. Both the conditional fixed effect logit estimates of the random utility model and mixed logit estimates implied that the rate of time preference is very high for immediate improvements and drops off substantially thereafter, which is inconsistent with exponential discounting but consistent with hyperbolic discounting. The implied marginal rate of time preference declines and then rises. Estimates of the quasi-hyperbolic discounting parameter range from 0.48 to 0.61. People who are older are especially likely to have a high disutility from delays in improving water quality.

hyperbolic discounting, intertemporal choice, time preference, environment

Abstract:
This article examines revealed rates of time preference for public goods, using environmental quality as the case study. A nationally representative panel-based sample of 2,914 respondents considered a series of 5 conjoint policy choices, yielding 14,570 decisions. Both the conditional fixed effect logit estimates of the random utility model and mixed logit estimates implied that the rate of time preference is very high for immediate improvements and drops off substantially thereafter, which is inconsistent with exponential discounting but consistent with hyperbolic discounting. The implied marginal rate of time preference declines and then rises. Estimates of the quasi-hyperbolic discounting parameter range from 0.48 to 0.61. People who are older are especially likely to have a high disutility from delays in improving water quality.

Abstract:
Value of life issues traditionally pertain to insurance of the losses of accident victims, for which replacement of the economic loss is often an appropriate concept. Deterrence measures of the value of life focus on risk-money tradeoffs involving small changes in risk. Using market data for risky jobs and product risk contexts often yields substantial estimates of the value of life in the range of $3 million to $9 million. These estimates are useful in providing guidance for regulatory policy and assessments of liability. However, use of these values to determine compensation, known as hedonic damages, leads to excessive insurance.

Abstract:
This paper 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 of 0.18 of total expenditures. Claims with higher stakes and complexity lead to greater reliance on outside counsel and less reliance on in-house counsel. Total transactions costs for each dollar received by claimants average $0.75 for all claims and $0.83 for claims in which the claimant retained an attorney and a suit was filed.

liability, insurance, torts, litigation costs, transactions costs

Abstract:
Our research examines empirically the age pattern of the implicit value of life revealed from workers' differential wages and job safety pairings. Although aging reduces the number of years of life expectancy, aging can affect the value of life through an effect on planned life-cycle consumption. The elderly could, a priori, have the highest implicit value of life if there is a life-cycle plan to defer consumption until old age. We find that largely due to the age pattern of consumption, which is non-constant, the implicit value of life rises and falls over the lifetime in a way that the value for the elderly is higher than the average over all ages or for the young. There are important policy implications of our empirical results. Because there may be age-specific benefits of programs to save statistical lives, instead of valuing the lives of the elderly at less than the young, policymakers should more correctly value the lives of the elderly at as much as twice the young because of relatively greater consumption lost when accidental death occurs.

Abstract:
The tradeoff between money and small risks of death is the value of statistical life (VSL), which has become the standard for assessing the benefits of risk and environmental regulations. Labor market estimates of the VSL average about $7 million. This valuation amount rises with age and then declines, closely tracking the pattern of consumption over the life cycle. The VSL for those at age 60 is higher than for people in their 20s. Application of this methodology to assess the mortality costs to smokers indicates a personal mortality cost on the order of $200 per pack for men and $100 for women using a 3 percent discount rate, but based on smokers' rates of time preference the costs are reduced by about an order of magnitude.

value of statistical life, mortality costs, smoking, job risks

Abstract:
Stated preference values for water quality ratings based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Water Quality Inventory ratings provide an operational basis for benefit assessment. Iterative choice survey results for a very large, nationally representative, Web-based panel imply an average valuation of $32 for each percent increase in lakes and rivers in the region for which water quality is rated Good. Valuations are skewed, with the mean value more than double the median. Sources of heterogeneity in benefit values include differences in responses to average water quality information and the base level of water quality. Conjoint estimates are somewhat lower than the iterative choice values. The annual economic value of the decline in inland U.S. water quality from 1994 to 2000 is over $20 billion.

water quality, stated preference, conjoint analysis

Abstract:
People seriously misjudge accident risks because they routinely neglect relevant information about exposure. Such risk judgments affect both personal and public policy decisions, e.g., choice of a transport mode, but also play a vital role in legal determinations, such as assessments of recklessness. Experimental evidence for a sample of 422 jury-eligible adults indicates that people incorporate information on the number of accidents, which is the numerator of the risk frequency calculation. However, they appear blind to information on exposure, such as the scale of a firm's operations, which is the risk frequency denominator. Hence, the actual observed accident frequency of accidents/exposure is not influential.

Abstract:
Voters' preferences for smoking restrictions in restaurants, bars, malls, indoor sporting events, and hospitals are consistent with state-level restrictions on smoking in each of these public areas. This analysis is based on constructed measures of political pressure that take into account both individual preferences and voting behavior. Although smokers are less likely to vote than nonsmokers, their lower voting rate does not substantially influence the probability that a state has a restriction. Other factors, such as tobacco's role in the state economy and state income, are rarely influential.

Abstract:
Previous studies of smoking risk beliefs have focused almost exclusively on risks to the smoker. Using an original set of survey data from Spain, we examine the public's perceived risks from exposures to environmental tobacco smoke. The risk categories considered included lung cancer, heart disease, life expectancy loss, and low birth weight for children of smoking mothers. Risk beliefs were quite high, often dwarfing scientific estimates of the risk. The results are consistent with overestimation of risks from highly publicized, low probability events.

Abstract:
Survey respondents assessed the risks of terrorist attacks and their consequences, and were asked how their assessments changed after 9/11/2001. This paper analyzes those risk assessments, and then uses respondents' patterns of risk assessments to explain their willingness to sacrifice civil liberties to combat terrorism.

More than half of the respondents exhibited hindsight bias, i.e., reported that risk assessments did not rise after 9/11. Estimates should have risen given that a major attack was an event with a low and highly uncertain probability. Equivalent numbers showed hindsight bias surrounding space shuttle risks and the Challenger accident.

There is general willingness to support airplane passenger profiling if the time costs of alternative policies are great, and there is support for surveillance policies to address terrorism risks as well. However, individuals suffering from hindsight bias are much less supportive. Interestingly, people exhibiting hindsight bias with respect to space shuttle accidents are also less supportive of these anti-terrorism policies. We explain these results as the phenomenon we label hindsight-choice bias: People assessing past decisions in which they are invested - such as the protective decisions the government made on behalf of its citizens - do not favor a change in policy after an unlikely event if they believe their risk estimates have not changed. Despite claiming that risks were not above their pre-9/11 levels, individuals exhibiting hindsight-choice bias do not have significantly lower terrorism risk beliefs than others. Yet, they are less supportive of anti-terrorism policies, which is consistent with continuing to favor policies that were previously desirable.

Abstract:
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker is a landmark that establishes an upper bound ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages of 1:1 for maritime cases, with potential implications for other types of cases as well. This article critiques the Court's reliance on the median ratio of punitive to compensatory damages in samples of verdicts to set an upper bound for punitive damages awards. Our critique of the approach draws on the properties of statistical distributions and a new analysis of cases with punitive damages awards. The Court's conclusion that a 1:1 ratio establishes a fair upper bound lacks a sound scientific basis.

punitive damages, blockbuster, punitive award, exxon, exxon shipping co. v. baker

Abstract:
Survey evidence for the Spanish population indicates that perceptions of lung cancer risk and life expectancy loss due to smoking are similar to estimates found in the United States. This paper also presents new evidence on the relative lung cancer risk for smokers, the perceived risk of lung disease for smokers, the heart disease risk for smokers, and the relative heart disease risk for smokers, all of which indicate substantial risk perceptions. Risk beliefs are particularly high for younger respondents, but are lower for better educated respondents.

Abstract:
This article constructs measures of job fatality rates for black and white workers using information on job-related fatalities from 1992-1997. The fatality rates for black employees are somewhat greater than those for whites. Each of these groups receives significant compensating wage differentials for fatality risks, controlling for nonfatal risks and expected workers' compensation benefits. The implicit value of a statistical life is lower for black workers than for whites. These results in conjunction with evidence that blacks receive less annual compensation for fatality risks than do whites imply that black and white workers face different market offer curves that are flatter for blacks than for whites.

Abstract:
Using original survey data from Spain, this paper assesses the determinants of smoking behavior. This study examines the effect on smoking of the most diverse set of risk measures ever considered: lung cancer, relative lung cancer risks, lung disease, heart disease, relative heart disease risks, lost life expectancy to smokers, and various risk measures for passive smoking. Smoking measures include cigarette smoking, the number of cigarettes smoked, and pipe and cigar smoking. Primary smoking risks have a more consistent negative effect on smoking than perceived passive smoking risks.

Abstract:
Cigarette taxes are often the highest excise taxes in terms of their percentage share of the product price. The extent of the excess burden imposed by the tax will increase with the elasticity of demand, which is usually estimated to be between -0.4 and -1.0. Potential rationales for raising the cigarette tax other than as a revenue device include compensation for financial externalities to society, deterrence of irrational risk taking decisions, and prevention of mistaken addictive decisions. Whether such rationales are compelling depends, however, on the empirical context in different countries. Evidence reported for the United States and some other countries suggests that country-specific empirical assessments are needed to determine the validity of such rationales and the extent of the tax that may be warranted. This paper also suggests that cigarette taxes are not the most effective mechanisms for deterring youth smoking or limiting exposures to environmental tobacco smoke, as these are best addressed through more targeted regulatory policies. A cautionary note with respect to cigarette taxes is that they are often extremely regressive taxes that impose substantial burdens on the poor.

cigarettes, smoking, excise taxes, Africa

Abstract:
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-section, workers' VSL rises from $3.7 million (ages 18-24), to $9.7 million (35-44), and declines to $3.4 million (55-62). Controlling for birth-year cohort effects in a minimum distance estimator yields a peak VSL of $7.8 million at age 46, and flattens the VSL-age relationship. The value of statistical life-year also follows an inverted-U shape with age.

Value of statistical life, job risks, hedonic wage regression, VSLY

Abstract:
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 and several new measures of worker fatality risks, first-difference estimates imply that omitting individual heterogeneity leads to overestimates of the value of statistical life, consistent with the latent safety-related skill interpretation. Risk measures with less measurement error raise the value of statistical life, the net effect being that estimates from the static model range from $5.3 million to $6.7 million, with dynamic model estimates somewhat higher.

value of statistical life, unobservable productivity, occupational fatality risks

Abstract:
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 and several new measures of worker fatality risks, first-difference estimates imply that omitting individual heterogeneity leads to overestimates of the value of statistical life, consistent with the latent safety-related skill interpretation. Risk measures with less measurement error raise the value of statistical life, the net effect being that estimates from the static model range from $5.3 million to $6.7 million, with dynamic model estimates somewhat higher.

Abstract:
General patterns of bias in risk beliefs are well established in the literature, but much less is known about how these biases vary across the population. Using a sample of almost 500 people, the regression analysis in this paper yields results consistent with the well established pattern that small risks are overassessed and large risks are underassessed. The accuracy of these risk beliefs varies across demographic factors, as does the switch point at which people go from underassessment to overassessment, which we found to be 1,500 deaths annually for the full sample. Better educated people have more accurate risk beliefs, and there are important differences in the risk perception by race and gender that also may be of policy interest.

risk perception, mortality risks

Abstract:
Our research addresses fundamental long - standing concerns in the compensating wage differentials literature and its public policy implications: the econometric properties of estimates of the value of statistical life (VSL) and the wide range of such estimates from about $0.5 million to about $21 million. We address most of the prominent econometric issues by applying panel data, a new and more accurate fatality risk measure, and systematic selection of panel estimator in our research. Controlling for measurement error, endogeneity, individual heterogeneity, and state dependence yields both a reasonable average level and narrow range for the estimated value of a statistical life of about $5.5 - $7.5 million.

VSL, panel data, fixed effects, random effects, PSID

Abstract:
Global climate change is of official concern at the national level throughout Europe and is mirrored in individual data. Examination of 1999 Eurobarometer survey data with respondents from 15 European countries indicates that respondents who are very worried about global warming risks are willing to increase the price of petrol by a higher percentage, if higher prices would cause less harm to the environment. Support for higher petrol prices increases with income and education, and declines steadily with age, reflecting the diminished private benefit that older respondents derive from environmental policies with deferred impacts.

global warming, climate change, willingness to pay, gasoline taxes

Abstract:
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 conflicting evidence—some showing that VSL rises with age and others showing that VSL declines with age—more refined estimates that take into account the age variation in job fatality risks or life-cycle patterns of consumption show an inverted U relation between the VSL and age. The value of a statistical life-year shows a similar pattern and is not time-invariant. Applying estimates of the VSL-age relationship to an analysis of the Clear Skies initiative illustrates the implications of recognizing the age-VSL relationship.

Abstract:
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 conflicting evidence - some showing that VSL rises with age and others showing that VSL declines with age - more refined estimates that take into account the age variation in job fatality risks or life-cycle patterns of consumption show an inverted-U relation between the VSL and age. The value of a statistical life year shows a similar pattern and is not time-invariant. Applying estimates of the VSL-age relationship to an analysis of the Clear Skies initiative illustrates the implications of recognizing the age-VSL relationship.

value of statistical life, VSL, value of statistical life year, risk

Abstract:
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. Accounting for this heterogeneity in hedonic market equilibria leads to estimates of the value of statistical life-age relationship that follows an inverted-U shape. The estimates of the value of statistical life range from $6.4 million for younger workers to a peak of $9.0 million for those age 35-44, and then a decline to $3.7 million for those age 55-62. The decline of the estimated VSL with age is consistent with there being some senior discount in the Clear Skies Initiative analysis.

value of statistical life, job risks, senior discount, compensating differentials

Abstract:
This article examines age variations in support for climate change policies in a sample of over 14,000 respondents to a 1999 Eurobarometer survey. There is a steady decline with age in whether respondents are willing to incur higher gasoline taxes to protect the environment and in the amount of gasoline taxes they are willing to pay. This relationship remains even controlling for demographic characteristics and country of residence. This article examines whether age or factors correlated with age explain the age-related decline in willingness to pay. There are age-related differences in information about environmental risks, information sources about the environment, perceived health risks from climate change, and degree of worry about climate change. However, even taking these factors into account does not eliminate the age variation in willingness to pay for a gasoline tax to protect the environment.

global warming, climate change, willingness to pay, gasoline taxes

Abstract:
This paper assesses the appropriate cigarette tax needed to address potential market failures. There is no evidence of inadequate risk decisions by smokers regarding their own welfare. Detailed calculations of the financial externalities of smoking indicate that the financial savings from premature mortality in terms of lower nursing home costs and retirement pensions exceed the higher medical care and life insurance costs generated. The costs of environmental tobacco smoke are highly uncertain, but of potentially substantial magnitude. Even with recognition of these costs, current cigarette taxes exceed the magnitude of the estimated net externalities.

Abstract:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the target of two recent controversies involving the devaluation of life - the 2003 use of a senior discount for the value of statistical life for those over age 65 and the 2008 downward reassessment of the value of statistical life by the EPA Air Office. Even though these new values of statistical life were still among the highest used in the Federal government, there was a strong negative public reaction to each. The public outcry over the EPA policies appears to have stemmed from an irrational response to decreases in the value of statistical life. Proposed congressional legislation that purportedly seeks to reform the valuations would politicize benefit assessments. A sounder approach is to establish a peer reviewed scientific advisory panel to advise agencies on the value of statistical life.

Value of statistical life, risk regulation, environmental regulation, senior discount, regulatory impact analyses

Abstract:
The risks of natural disasters have received substantial attention because of the substantial stakes involved and the lessons disasters provide for assessing the rationality of risky decisions. While there are some reasonable aspects of disaster insurance purchases, there are notable shortcomings as well, such as inadequate perception of these risks. After disasters have occurred, there are often errors in the opposite direction. A major social policy decision involves the extent to which the government should fund rebuilding efforts, which are difficult to deny after disasters have occurred. Zoning restrictions and other anticipatory self insurance and self protection policies will mitigate the hold-up problem.

Abstract:
This article proposes that the value of statistical life be used to set the total damages amount needed for deterrence when punitive damages are warranted in wrongful death cases. The appropriate level of damages should be achieved by adjusting the value of punitive damages. Compensatory damages should not be distorted to establish the total damages level needed for efficient deterrence. Attempts to introduce hedonic damages as a compensatory damages component and proposals to use the value of statistical life on a routine basis when setting compensatory damages awards are misguided and will undermine the insurance and compensation function of compensatory damages. The U.S. Supreme Court’s focus on punitive damages ratios is misplaced, as it is the total damages amount, not the ratio, that is instrumental. The criteria for evaluating punitive damages in bodily injury cases should be different than for property damages cases. The composition of compensatory damages is especially important for bodily injury cases. Empirical analysis of current state court awards in bodily injury cases shows the desired positive relationship between punitive damages awards and the nonpecuniary loss.

Punitive damages, value of statistical life, deterrence

Abstract:
This paper uses a random utility model to examine stated preferences for the valuation of public risks of fatalities from terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Traffic-related deaths serve as the common reference point in two series of pairwise risk-risk tradeoff choices. Even after taking into account differences in respondent risk beliefs, the nationally representative sample values preventing terrorism deaths almost twice as highly as preventing natural disaster deaths and at about the same level as preventing deaths from traffic accidents, which pose greater personal risk. Education, seat belt usage, political preferences, and terrorism risk beliefs affect valuations in the expected manner.

risk tradeoffs, terrorism, natural disasters, dread, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 attack

Abstract:
Prominent in arguments opposing preemption of state tort law liability for alleged inadequacies in prescription drug labeling is the argument that such liability can complement FDA regulation by improving on a regulatory scheme that fails to provide adequate deterrence against the marketing of unsafe or inadequately labeled drugs. The premise of this argument is faulty. Fundamental principles of economics and numerous studies of FDA drug regulation reveal that FDA in fact errs on the side of overregulation of prescription drugs. Product liability litigation focused solely on one side of the prescription drug public health equation leads to further distortions of the drug approval and labeling process and exacerbates FDA's inherent overly cautious approach. Preemption of state tort law where it conflicts with FDA requirements will minimize these distortions and thereby maximize public health.

Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between risk attitudes and individual rates of time preference. We find that heterogeneous risk preferences and their allied behaviors are correlated with differences in individual discount rates. To illustrate our theory we examine the rates of time preference with respect to discounted years of life for smokers, former smokers, and nonsmokers. Of the subgroups examined, smokers have the highest and former smokers have the lowest rates of time preference. Estimates of the different implicit values of a statistical life for these groups are consistent with the different estimated rates of time preference.

risk attitudes, time preference, value of life, smoking

Abstract:
Using data from the Current Population Survey and the New Immigrant Survey, this paper examines the common perception that immigrants are concentrated in high risk jobs for which they receive little wage compensation. Compared to native U.S. workers, non-Mexican immigrants are not at higher risk and have substantial values of statistical life. However, Mexican immigrants incur much higher fatality risks than native U.S. workers and do not receive wage compensation for these risks. Mexican immigrants who do not understand English fare especially poorly. The evidence is consistent with Mexican immigrants facing different wage offer curves.

value of statistical life, immigrants, fatality risks, risk, compensating differentials, immigration, Mexican immigrants

Abstract:
One unusual feature of the U.S. property-casualty insurance industry is the coexistence of stock and mutual companies. This paper explores the performance of these forms in the industry through a dynamic assessment of how mutual and stock insurance companies respond to differences in their underwriting environment. Agency theories suggest that the stock company may be more 'opportunistic' and less obligated to their insureds than mutuals. This article assesses the responses by stock and mutual firms to changes in the underwriting environment from 1984 to 1991, using measures of individual firms' performance, by state and by line, in eight different lines of insurance. Stock companies are more likely than mutuals to reduce their business in unprofitable situations, and have higher losses than mutuals for a given amount of premiums.

Abstract:
Individuals with higher personal rates of time preference will be more likely to smoke. Although previous studies have found no evidence of a relationship between smoking and rates of time preference, analysis of implicit rates of discount associated with workers' wage-fatality risk tradeoffs indicates that smokers have higher rates of time preference with respect to years of life. Current smokers have an implied discount rate of 13.9%, as compared to 8.1% for nonsmokers. Current smokers who are blue-collar workers have rates of time preference with respect to years of life of 16.4% compared to 7.9% for nonsmoking blue-collar workers.

time preference, smoking, choice to smoke, rates of time

Abstract:
A sample of almost 100 judges exhibited well-known patterns of biases in risk beliefs and reasonable implicit values of life. These biases and personal preferences largely do not affect attitudes toward judicial risk decisions, though there are some exceptions, such as ambiguity aversion, misinterpretation of negligence rules, and retrospective risk assessments in accident cases, which is a form of hindsight bias. Although judges avoided many pitfalls exhibited by jurors and the population at large, they nevertheless exhibited systematic errors, particularly for small probability-large loss events. These findings highlighted the importance of judicial review and the input of expert risk analysts to assist judicial decisions in complex risk cases.

Abstract:
This article estimates the mortality cost of smoking based on the first labor market estimates of the value of statistical life by smoking status. Using these values in conjunction with the increase in the mortality risk over the life cycle due to smoking, the value of statistical life by age and gender, and information on the number of packs smoked over the life cycle, produces an estimate of the private mortality cost of smoking of $222 per pack for men and $94 per pack for women in 2006 dollars, based on a 3 percent discount rate. At discount rates of 15 percent or more, the cost decreases to under $25 per pack.

Abstract:
This article examines the economic basis for what is termed "rational discounting," which entails full recognition of policy effects over time and exponential discounting at a riskless rate of return. Policies often cannot be ranked unambiguously in terms of their present or future orientation. Both failure to discount and preferential intergenerational discounting generate inconsistencies and economic anomalies. Office of Management and Budget discounting guidelines now stipulate more reasonable discount rates than earlier guidelines, but err in permitting open-ended preferential rates for intergenerational effects. The article presents a methodology for monetizing the value of statistical life for people of different ages and at different points in time. Review of regulatory analyses indicates increased consistency of discounting practices. However, examination of two policies with intergenerational effects, stratospheric ozone regulation and nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, reveal failures to adopt a rational discounting approach. The influence of behavioral anomalies such as hyperbolic discounting may make full recognition of intertemporal effects in benefit-cost analysis more consequential than the use of preferential discount rates.

Abstract:
This article examines the political economy of preferences with respect to the environment using a new stated preference survey that presents the first benefit values for national water quality levels. The mean valuation greatly exceeds the median value, as the distribution of valuations is highly skewed. The study couples the survey valuations with unique and extensive information on respondent voting patterns. Preferences of registered voters are similar to the preferences of the population at large, but median voters value water quality more than non-voters. The strongest contrast related to voter weighted preferences is among voters for different candidates, as those who voted for Gore in the 2000 presidential election have the highest environmental values.

environment, water quality, stated preference, political economy, benefit-cost analysis

Abstract:
This article is a Reply to the critique by Black, Hyman, and Silver (BHS) of our 2007 Journal of Legal Studies article, “An Empirical Assessment of Early Offer Reform for Medical Malpractice.” The early offer reform gives insurers the option of making an early offer that will expedite payment of claimants’ economic losses and reasonable attorney fees. Using data on closed medical malpractice claims from the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI), our 2007 article estimates the financial impact of this proposal by comparing the expected payments to claimants under the early offer reform to the payments under current tort rules. A central component of our calculation of expected payments is unique information on insurers’ reserves associated with the claim; actual payments are reported in the TDI data for all litigated and settled cases involving payments of at least $10,000. The BHS article misrepresents fundamental aspects of our empirical analysis, including the following. BHS set out to correct our purported “false assumption” that all claims have a 1.0 probability of success, which is a problem that arises because BHS omit the probability of claimant success from the formula that is presented in our paper. BHS’s error is compounded as their discussion of our paper fails to recognize that our use of reserve amounts in the analysis incorporates the insurers’ estimates of the likelihood of claimant success, Indeed, they neither acknowledge our use of the insurer reserve data, nor do they use the insurer reserve information in their paper. BHS claim incorrectly that our analysis does not discount deferred payments whereas in fact it does. Our early offer analysis uses data for both litigated and settled claims, avoiding the selection bias and measurement error problems associated with BHS’s extrapolation from the 2% of paid claims that are litigated to the universe of all settled and litigated claims. In addition to these and other errors in their characterization of our empirical analysis, the BHS article reflects a misunderstanding of the operation of the early offer reform, which leads them to erroneous statements regarding how the parties would behave if the early offer reform were implemented. We also provide a brief critique of the BHS two-sided version of the early offer proposal, which would not be workable and would not reduce litigation costs significantly.

early offer reform, medical malpractice, insurance, Texas Department of Insurance

Abstract:
Natural catastrophes often have catastrophic risks on insurance companies as well as on the insured. Using a very large dataset on homeowners' insurance coverage by state, by firm, and by year for the 1984 to 2004 period, this paper documents the positive effect on losses and loss ratios of both unexpected catastrophes as well as large events that the authors term "blockbuster catastrophes." Insurers adapt to these catastrophic risks by raising insurance rates, leading to lower loss ratios after the catastrophic event. There is a widespread event of unexpected catastrophes and blockbuster catastrophes that reduces total premiums earned in the state, reduces the total number writing insurance coverage in the state, and leads to the exit of firms from the state. Firms with low levels of homeowners' premiums are most adversely affected by the catastrophes.

Abstract:
This article examines age variations in support for environmental protection policies that affect climate change using a sample of over 14,000 respondents to a 1999 Eurobarometer survey. There is a steady decline with age in whether respondents are willing to incur higher gasoline prices to protect the environment. This relationship remains after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics. There are age-related differences in information about environmental risks, information sources about the environment, perceived health risks from climate change, and degree of worry about climate change. However, taking these factors into account does not eliminate the age variation in willingness to pay more for gasoline to protect the environment.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
We examine differences in the value of statistical life (VSL) across potential wage levels in panel data using quantile regressions with intercept heterogeneity. Latent heterogeneity is econometrically important and affects the estimated VSL. Our findings indicate that a reasonable average cost per expected life saved cut-off for health and safety regulations is $7 million to $8 million per life saved, but the VSL varies considerably across the labor force. Our results reconcile the previous discrepancies between hedonic VSL estimates and the values implied by theories linked to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Because the VSL varies elastically with income, regulatory agencies should regularly update the VSL used in benefit assessments, increasing the VSL proportionally with changes in income over time.

value of statistical life, VSL, quantile regression, panel data, fixed effects, PSID, fatality risk, CFOI

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
A nationally representative sample of respondents estimated their fatality risks from four types of natural disasters, and indicated whether they favored governmental disaster relief. For all hazards, including auto accident risks, most respondents assessed their risks as being below average, with one-third assessing them as average. Individuals from high-risk states, or with experience with disasters, estimate risks higher, though by less than reasonable calculations require. Four-fifths of our respondents favor government relief for disaster victims, but only one-third do for victims in high-risk areas. Individuals who perceive themselves at higher risk are more supportive of government assistance.

Abstract:
We examine differences in the value of statistical life (VSL) across potential wage levels in panel data using quantile regressions with intercept heterogeneity. Latent heterogeneity is econometrically important and affects the estimated VSL. Our findings indicate that a reasonable average cost per expected life saved cut-off for health and safety regulations is $7 million to $8 million per life saved, but the VSL varies considerably across the labor force. Our results reconcile the previous discrepancies between hedonic VSL estimates and the values implied by theories linked to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Because the VSL varies elastically with income, regulatory agencies should regularly update the VSL used in benefit assessments, increasing the VSL proportionally with changes in income over time.

value of statistical life, VSL, quantile regression, panel data, fixed effects, PSID, fatality risk, CFOI

Abstract:
No abstract is available for this paper.

Abstract:
Whereas the literature evaluating the effect of tort reforms has focused on the impact of reforms on insurers' reported incurred losses, this article examines the ultimate effects of reforms using the developed losses from a comprehensive sample of insurers writing medical malpractice insurance from 1984 to 2003. Noneconomic damages caps are particularly influential in reducing medical malpractice losses and increasing insurer profitability. The long-run effects of these reforms are greater than insurers' expected effects; for example, 5- and 7-year developed loss ratios are below the initially reported incurred loss ratios for those years following the enactment of noneconomic damages caps. Analyses of reported losses consequently understate the ultimate effects of tort reforms. The quantile regressions show that reforms have the greatest effects for the firms that are at the high end of the loss distribution.

Abstract:
The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement resolved the unprecedented litigation in which the states sought to recoup the cigarette-related Medicaid costs. The litigation was settled through a combination of negotiated regulatory requirements and financial payments of about $250 billion over 25 years. Settlement payments received by states are strongly related to smoking-related medical costs but are also related to political factors. The payments largely took the form of an excise tax equivalent, raising potential antitrust concerns. The regulatory restrictions imposed by the agreement also raised antitrust concerns. However, there has been no evident shift in industry concentration. The increase in advertising and marketing expenses has largely taken the form of price discounts. The settlement sidestepped the usual procedures pertaining to the imposition of taxes and the promulgation of new regulations.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
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 of 0.18 of total expenditures. Claims with higher stakes and complexity lead to greater reliance on outside counsel and less reliance on in-house counsel. Total transactions costs for each dollar received by claimants average $0.75 for all claims and $0.83 for claims in which the claimant retained an attorney and a suit was filed.