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

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Louis Kaplow

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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 (R’s) in excess of one, and often significantly higher. However, it can be shown that high R’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 an R 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. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal Journal of Risk and Uncertainty.

Volume (Year): 31 (2005)
Issue (Month): 1 (July)
Pages: 23-34
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Handle: RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:31:y:2005:i:1:p:23-34

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Keywords: coefficient of risk aversion equity premium risk aversion value of a statistical life

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  5. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 803-887 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. B. Douglas Bernheim & Katherine Grace Carman & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2001. "The Mismatch Between Life Insurance Holdings and Financial Vulnerabilities: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," NBER Working Papers 8544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Choi, E. Kwan & Menezes, Carmen F., 1992. "Is relative risk aversion greater than one?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 43-54. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Palsson, Anne-Marie, 1996. "Does the degree of relative risk aversion vary with household characteristics?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 771-787, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Oliver Fabel & Thomas Weber, 2005. "Entrepreneurial Elites: Industry Structure and Welfare Effects of Incubating New Businesses," Working Papers of the Research Group Heterogenous Labor 05-09, Research Group Heterogeneous Labor, University of Konstanz/ZEW Mannheim. [Downloadable!]
  2. Mary F. Evans & V. Kerry Smith, 2008. "Complementarity and the Measurement of Individual Risk Tradeoffs: Accounting for Quantity and Quality of Life Effects," NBER Working Papers 13722, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 2004. "The Value of Life and the Rise in Health Spending," NBER Working Papers 10737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Louis Kaplow, 2003. "Concavity of Utility, Concavity of Welfare, and Redistribution of Income," NBER Working Papers 10005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A Bound on Risk Aversion Using Labor Supply Elasticities," NBER Working Papers 12067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Laszlo Goerke, 2007. "Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts and Collective Wage Determination," IZA Discussion Papers 3141, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Sabirianova, Klara, 2006. "Public Sector Pay and Corruption: Measuring Bribery from Micro Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 5585, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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