A Quantile Estimation Approach to Identify Income and Age Variation in the Value of Statistical Life
Document Type
Article - preprint
Department
Economics (CMC)
Publication Date
2010
Abstract
In theory, heterogeneity in individual characteristics translates into variation in the marginal willingness to pay for a mortality risk reduction. Two dimensions of heterogeneity, with respect to income and age, have recently received attention due to their policy relevance. We propose a quantile regression approach to simultaneously explore these two sources of heterogeneity and their interactions within the context of the hedonic wage model, the most common revealed preference approach for obtaining value of statistical life estimates. We illustrate the approach using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We find that the impact of age on the wage–risk tradeoff varies across the wage distribution. This result indicates important interactions between age and income heterogeneity. Thus, the conventional mean hedonic wage regression, even when the mean effect is allowed to vary with age, masks important heterogeneity.
Rights Information
© 2010 Elsevier
Terms of Use & License Information
DOI
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2009.11.004
Recommended Citation
Evans, Mary F. and Georg Schaur, A Quantile Estimation Approach to Identify Income and Age Variation in the Value of Statistical Life, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 59(3): 260-270, 2010.
