The Valuation of Risks to Life: Evidence from the Market for Automobiles

Abstract

Using hedonic regression techniques, estimates of the willingness-to-pay for changes in the risks of dying can be inferred from actual behavior in market situations involving risk-dollar tradeoffs. Thaler and Rosen (1975) pioneered this approach, obtaining estimates of the value of a statistical life using labor market data, in this paper we use the hedonic technique to obtain the first estimates of the value of a statistical life from data on the market for automobiles. Our estimated value of a statistical life for the sample as a whole is $3.357 million 1986 dollars. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.