Is a Death a Death? Further Evidence on Revealed Preferences for Reducing Heterogeneous Risks

Date

March 18, 2010

Event Series

Workshop

Is a Death a Death? Further Evidence on Revealed Preferences for Reducing Heterogeneous Risks
RFF Academic Seminar

Presenter
Laura Taylor
North Carolina State University

Date
Thursday, March 18, 2010
2:00 - 3:30 pm

Location
7th Floor Conference Center
1616 P St. NW
Washington, DC 20036

Abstract

“Is a death a death? Further evidence on revealed preferences for reducing heterogeneous risks" by Ikuho Kochi (Colorado State University) and Laura Taylor (North Carolina State University)

This research examines preferences for reducing mortality and morbidity risks as related to the characteristics of the risks faced. We exploit the inherent heterogeneity in workplace risks to conduct one of the few revealed preference studies on this topic. Unique location-specific risk data are developed for over 200 US cities that measures both accidental and homicide risks faced by our sample of workers. A sample of occupational drivers is used to separately identify the wage premiums for facing increased homicide and accidental risks. Both these risks significantly vary intracity (across driving occupations) and intercity. Results indicate that the characteristics of risk affect the compensation demanded to face those risks in intuitive and economically important ways. As such, caution is urged for benefits transfer exercises that apply estimates of the marginal willingness to pay for reducing labor market accident risks to policies affecting risks with very different characteristics, such as common environmental risks.

All seminars will be in the 7th Floor Conference Room at RFF, 1616 P Street NW. Attendance is open, but involves pre-registration no later than two days prior to the event. For questions and to register to an event, please contact Juha Siikamäki at [email protected] (tel. 202-328-5157) or Will Isaac at [email protected] (tel. 202-328-5088). Updates to our academic seminars schedule will be posted at www.rff.org/academicseminarseries

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