Abstract
Utilizing the duality properties of a production/profit function, this article estimates the risk premium received by Pennsylvania bituminous coal miners in 1915, without recourse to any information related to wages. A Cobb-Douglas coal production function is fitted to data for 694 mining establishments. Miners received modest risk compensation, expressed as the value of a statistical life (VSL), of US$6,020 for fatal injuries and US$3,550 for nonfatal accidents. Converted to current price and wage levels, the death risk VSL is roughly US$400,000—far below modern multi-million dollar life values for workplace risk.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
