Abstract
All production activities generate health risks to workers. This article employs input-output analysis in conjunction with job-risk data by industry to construct measures of the direct and indirect risks imposed by expenditures. Both fatalities and nonfatal injuries (which include illnesses) are considered. The occupational-risk component of expenditures is generally in the range of 3–4% of costs, with nonfatal injuries contributing the larger share. Expenditure levels that generate a fatality or a lost-workday injury are provided by industry, as are a variety of other measures that consider both created and avoided risks pertinent to risk-risk analyses and cost-effectiveness analyses, respectively.
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Viscusi's research was supported by EPA Cooperative Agreement number CA-814-388-02 with Duke University. Zeckhauser's research was supported by grant number SES91-11056 from the Decision, Risk and Management Science division of the National Science Foundation. Wassily Leontief and Mark Dreyfus provided excellent input. Please direct all correspondence to Professor Viscusi.
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Viscusi, W.K., Zeckhauser, R.J. The fatality and injury costs of expenditures. J Risk Uncertainty 8, 19–41 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064084
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064084