Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Review of Economic Statistics
Publication Date
2001
ISSN
0034-6535
Page Number
269
Keywords
industrial safety, smoking
Disciplines
Health Law and Policy | Law
Abstract
Using a large data set, the authors find that smokers select riskier jobs, but receive lower total wage compensation for risk than do nonsmokers. This finding is inconsistent with conventional models of compensating differentials. The authors develop a model in which worker risk preferences and job safety performance lead to smokers facing a flatter market offer curve than nonsmokers. The empirical results support the theoretical model. Smokers are injured more often controlling for their job's objective risk and are paid less for these risks of injury. Smokers and nonsmokers, in effect, are segmented labor market groups with different preferences and different market offer curves.
Recommended Citation
Joni Hersch and W. Kip Viscusi,
Cigarette Smokers as Job Risk Takers, 80 Review of Economic Statistics. 269
(2001)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/691