Although benefit assessment principles are well established for specific populations, very little attention has been paid to how to define the scope of the pertinent population for such assessments. Whose social welfare matters and whose benefits should be included in the assessment? In the case...

This paper updates the mortality cost of expenditures. Because changes in income lead to changes in mortality risk, regulatory expenditures costing more per life saved than a threshold cost-per-life saved cutoff level are expected to increase mortality risk. This article discusses the mechanisms...

This paper examines household recycling participation by state among panelists in a large nationally representative internet survey panel. We report the percent of panelists in each state who indicate household recycling of cans, plastic, paper, or glass in the previous twelve months. These data...

Using an original, nationally representative sample of plastic water bottle users, this article examines the efficacy of policy mechanisms to foster increased recycling. In particular, it examines the impact of the stringency of a state’s laws on the availability of recycling opportunities...

The considerable literature on the value of a statistical life (VSL) documents the wage-mortality risk tradeoffs for the working population. Regulatory analyses often must monetize risks to populations at the tails of the age distribution. Because of the longer life expectancy for children,...

The most enduring measure of how individuals make personal decisions affecting their health and safety is the compensating wage differential for job safety risk revealed in the labor market via hedonic equilibrium outcomes. The decisions in turn reveal the value of a statistical life (VSL), the...

Catastrophic risks differ in terms of their natural or human origins, their possible amplification by human behaviors, and the relationships between those who create the risks and those who suffer the losses. Given their disparate anatomies, catastrophic risks generally require tailored...

This paper reports the stated preference values for reducing the morbidity risks from drinking water estimated using a nationally representative U.S. sample of 3,585 households. Based on the average annual gastrointestinal (GI) illness risk in the U.S. from drinking water of about 5 illnesses...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the target of two recent controversies involving the devaluation of life - the 2003 use of a senior discount for the value of statistical life for those over age 65 and the 2008 downward reassessment of the value of statistical life by the...

This article estimates whether there is a cancer risk premium for the value of a statistical life (VSL) using stated preference valuations of cancer risks for a large, nationally representative U.S. sample. The present value of an expected cancer case that occurs after a one decade latency...