IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jrisku/v15y1997i2p115-33.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Individuals' Estimates of the Risks of Death: Part I--A Reassessment of the Previous Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Benjamin, Daniel K
  • Dougan, William R

Abstract

It is widely argued that individuals have biased perceptions of health and safety risks. A reconsideration of the best-known evidence suggests that this view is the erroneous result of a failure to consider the implications of scarce information. Our findings imply that the hypothesis that people make unbiased estimates of hazard rates fails to be rejected by the very data that were initially used to reject it. Thus, we are able to reconcile the alleged existence of widespread bias in risk perception with other findings that such bias is less apparent in the case of job-related hazards. The seeming bias in estimating population-average death rates and the lack of such bias in assessing job risks are two manifestations of the same behavior, which is the optimal acquisition of costly information. Copyright 1997 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin, Daniel K & Dougan, William R, 1997. "Individuals' Estimates of the Risks of Death: Part I--A Reassessment of the Previous Evidence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 115-133, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:15:y:1997:i:2:p:115-33
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0895-5646/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John C. Moorehouse, 2001. "Does Information on the Internet Weaken the Case for Consumer Protection Regulation?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 16(Spring 20), pages 138-160.
    2. Arianne de Blaeij & Daniel van Vuuren, 2001. "Risk Perception of Traffic Participants," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 01-027/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Henrik Andersson & Nicolas Treich, 2011. "The Value of a Statistical Life," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Olivier Armantier, 2006. "Estimates of Own Lethal Risks and Anchoring Effects," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 37-56, January.
    5. Meglena Jeleva, 2005. "Croyances de survie et choix de contrat d'assurance décès une étude empirique," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 71(1), pages 95-116.
    6. Henrik Andersson, 2011. "Perception of Own Death Risk: An Assessment of Road‐Traffic Mortality Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(7), pages 1069-1082, July.
    7. G. Dionne & P.-C. Michaud, 2002. "Statistical Analysis of Value-of Life estimates using Hedonic Wage Method," THEMA Working Papers 2002-13, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    8. Jahn Karl Hakes & W. Kip Viscusi, 2004. "Dead Reckoning: Demographic Determinants of the Accuracy of Mortality Risk Perceptions," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(3), pages 651-664, June.
    9. Joseph Michael Newhard, 2018. "The effect of equalizing differences on tax-price: explaining patterns of political support across industries," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 281-302, September.
    10. Andersson, Henrik, 2006. "Willingness to Pay for Road Safety and Estimates of the Risk of Death: Evidence from a Swedish Contingent Valuation Study," Working Papers 2006:5, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    11. Henrik Andersson & Petter Lundborg, 2007. "Perception of own death risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 67-84, February.
    12. Winslott Hiselius, Lena, 2003. "The Value of Road and Railway Safety - an Overview," Working Papers 2003:13, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    13. Eva Lermer & Bernhard Streicher & Rainer Sachs & Martina Raue & Dieter Frey, 2016. "Thinking Concretely Increases the Perceived Likelihood of Risks: The Effect of Construal Level on Risk Estimation," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(3), pages 623-637, March.
    14. Meglena JELEVA, 2005. "Croyances de survie et choix de contrat d’assurance décès : une étude empirique," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 2005014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    15. Glenn C. Blomquist, 2004. "Self-Protection and Averting Behavior, Values of Statistical Lives, and Benefit Cost Analysis of Environmental Policy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 89-110, March.
    16. Thomas Post & Katja Hanewald, 2010. "Stochastic Mortality, Subjective Survival Expectations, and Individual Saving Behavior," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2010-040, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    17. Daniel K. Benjamin, 2010. "Armen Alchian on Evolution, Information, and Cost: The Surprising Implications of Scarcity," Chapters, in: Ross B. Emmett (ed.), The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics, chapter 14, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Andersson, Henrik & Lundborg, Petter, 2006. "Perception of Own Death Risk: An Analysis of Road-Traffic and Overall Mortality Risks," Working Papers 2006:1, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    19. Schubert, Manuel & Brück, Tilman, 2014. "The Perception of Lethal Risks: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 8578, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Frank Sloan & Lindsey Eldred & Tong Guo & Yanzhi Xu, 2013. "Are people overoptimistic about the effects of heavy drinking?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 93-127, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jrisku:v:15:y:1997:i:2:p:115-33. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.