Description/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 to almost $30 million. Here we address most of the prominent econometric issues by applying panel data, a new and more accurate fatality risk measure, and systematic application of panel data estimators. Controlling for measurement error, endogeneity, latent individual heterogeneity that may be correlated with the regressors, state dependence, and sample composition yields an estimated value of a statistical life of about $7 million–$12 million, which we show can clarify greatly the cost-effectiveness of regulatory decisions. We show that probably the most important econometric issue is controlling for latent heterogeneity; less important is how one does it.

Document Type

Working Paper

Date

3-2010

Keywords

Panel data, fixed effects, random effects, long-differences, PSID

Language

English

Series

Working Papers Series

Disciplines

Public Policy

Additional Information

Working paper no. 122

Harvest from RePEc at http://repec.org

Source

Metadata from RePEc

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Included in

Public Policy Commons

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