Value of statistical life and cause of accident: A choice experiment

Fredrik Carlsson (), Dinky Daruvala () and Henrik Jaldell ()
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Dinky Daruvala: Department of Economics, Karlstad University, Postal: SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
Henrik Jaldell: Department of Economics, Karlstad University, Postal: SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden

No 332, Working Papers in Economics from Göteborg University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to compare value of statistical life (VSL) estimates for traffic, drowning and fire accidents. Using a choice experiment in a mail survey of 5000 Swedish respondents we estimated the willingness to pay for risk reductions in the three accidents. In the experiment respondents were asked in a series of questions, whether they would choose risk reducing investments where type of accident, cost of the investment, the risk reduction acquired, and the baseline risk varied between questions. The VSLs for fire and drowning accidents were found to be about 1/3 lower than that for traffic accidents. Although respondents worry more about traffic accidents, this alone cannot explain the difference in VSL estimates. The difference between fire and drowning accidents was not found to be statistically significant.

Keywords: Stated preferences; statistical life; risk; traffic; fire; drowning; choice experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 D81 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-hea and nep-ias
Date: 2008-12-09

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