The Value of Statistical Life: Pursuing the Deadliest Catch

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Kurt E. Schnier, Georgia State University, Department of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.Follow
William C. Horrace, Syracuse University, Department of Economics and Center for Policy Research.Follow
Ronald G. Felthoven, U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center.Follow

Description/Abstract

Observed tradeoffs between monetary returns and fatality risk identify estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL), inform public policy and quantity preferences for environmental quality, health and safety. To date, few investigations have estimated the VSL associated with tradeoffs between returns from natural resource extraction activities and the fatality risks they involve. Furthermore researchers have been unable to determine whether or not one's VSL is stable across multiple decision environments using revealed preference methods. Understanding these tradeoffs (and the VSL that they imply) may be used to inform resource management policy and safety regulations, as well as our general understanding of the value of life. By modeling a commercial fishing captain's choice to fish or not, conditional on the observed risk, this research investigates these topics using data from the Alaskan red king crab and snow crab fisheries. Using weather conditions and policy variables as instruments, our estimates of the mean VSL range from $4.00 to $4.67M (depending on the modeling assumption and fishery analyzed) and are robust to the incorporation of heterogeneous preferences. Furthermore, given the unique nature of the data we are able to conduct an intra-vessel comparison of the VSL and conclude that for roughly 92% of the fishermen observed in the data set their VSL estimates are stable across both fisheries.

Document Type

Working Paper

Date

2009

Keywords

value of statistical life (VSL), intra-agent VSL comparison, Alaskan crab fisheries

Language

English

Series

Working Papers Series

Disciplines

Statistics and Probability

Additional Information

Working paper no. 117

Harvest from RePEc at http://repec.org

Recommended Citation

Schnier, Kurt E.; Horrace, William C.; and Felthoven, Ronald G., "The Value of Statistical Life: Pursuing the Deadliest Catch" (2009). Center for Policy Research. 49.
https://surface.syr.edu/cpr/49

Source

Metadata from RePEc

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.