The Value of a Statistical Life and the Coefficient of Relative Risk Aversion

Louis Kaplow

No 9852, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Individuals' risk preferences are estimated and employed in a variety of settings, notably including choices in financial, labor, and product markets. Recent work, especially in financial economics, provides estimates of individuals' coefficients of relative risk aversion (CRRA's) in excess of one, and often significantly higher. However, it can be shown that high CRRA's imply equally high values for the income elasticity of the value of a statistical life. Yet estimates of this elasticity, derived from labor and product markets, are in the range of 0.5 to 0.6. Furthermore, it turns out that even a CRRA below one is difficult to reconcile with these elasticity estimates. Thus, there appears to be an important (additional) anomaly involving individuals' risk-taking behavior in different market settings.

JEL-codes: D80 G11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-mic and nep-rmg
Note: EH LS AP PE
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Published as Kaplow, Louis. "The Value Of A Statistical Life And The Coefficient Of Relative Risk Aversion," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2005, v31(1,Jul), 23-34.

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Journal Article: The Value of a Statistical Life and the Coefficient of Relative Risk Aversion (2005)
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