New Hedonics study says previous studies overestimate the value of life

A recent working paper by some of the leaders in hedonic wages research at Harvard, suggests that older studies overestimate the value of life. According to the paper by, Thomas J. Kneisner, W. Kip Viscusi, Christopher Woock & James P. Ziliak, previous research on the topic did not adequately account for individual level differences in areas such as attitudes toward risk and safety. By not adequately accounting for these factors, these studies suggested that the Value of a statistical Life (VSL) was in the area of $16.0 million.

In contrast, more recent research on the topic that reports to account for these differences suggest that the value of life is about $6.7 million.

For a copy of the paper: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Viscusi_et%20al_524.pdf