@techreport{NBERw11659,
 title = "How Unobservable Productivity Biases the Value of a Statistical Life",
 author = "Thomas J. Kniesner and W. Kip Viscusi and Christopher Woock and James P. Ziliak",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "11659",
 year = "2005",
 month = "October",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w11659",
 abstract = {A prominent theoretical controversy in the compensating differentials literature concerns unobservable individual productivity. Competing models yield opposite predictions depending on whether the unobservable productivity is safety-related skill or productivity generally. Using five panel waves and several new measures of worker fatality risks, first-difference estimates imply that omitting individual heterogeneity leads to overestimates of the value of statistical life, consistent with the latent safety-related skill interpretation. Risk measures with less measurement error raise the value of statistical life, the net effect being that estimates from the static model range from $5.3 million to $6.7 million, with dynamic model estimates somewhat higher.},
}