Description/Abstract
We examine the incidence, form, and research consequences of measurement error in measure of fatal injury risk in United States workplaces using both BLS and NIOSH data. We find evidence of substantial measurement errors in the fatality risk researchers attach to individual workers when estimating the implicit price of risk and the value of a statistical life. We first examine possible classical attenuation bias in the fatality risk coefficient. However, because we also find non-classical measurement error that differs across multiple risk measures and is not independent of other regressors, more complex statistical procedures than a standard instrumental variables estimator need be applied to obtain statistically improved estimates of wage-fatality risk tradeoffs. We conclude by noting that the National Institute of Safety and Health’s industry risk measure produces implicit value of life estimates much more in line with the mode for the existing literature than other risk measures.
Document Type
Working Paper
Date
1-2003
Keywords
wage-fatality risk tradeoffs
Series
Working Papers Series
Disciplines
Labor Economics | Medicine and Health Sciences
Recommended Citation
Black, Dan and Kniesner, Thomas J., "On the Measurment of Job Risk in Hedonic Wage Models" (2003). Center for Policy Research. 181.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/181
Source
local input
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Additional Information
Working paper no. 49