Do the Near Elderly Value Mortality Risks Differently from Younger Persons?

Wage hedonic models are estimated with the Health and Retirement Study to measure the risk / wage tradeoffs (value of statistical lives) for older workers. The analysis explicitly accounts for multiple employment states including retirement using a multinomial selection model. The results suggest that the oldest and most risk averse workers require significantly higher, not lower, compensation to accept increases in job related fatality risks.