Men's Health quotes Viscusi

December 1, 2007

The popular magazine Men's Health asks Professor Viscusi about perception of health risks.

 

The Vanderbilt Lawyer features the Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics

November 1, 2007

The Vanderbilt Lawyer alumni publication (Vol. 36, No. 1) features the official launch of the Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics as well as Co-directors W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch and the program's first class of students.

 

The Vanderbilt View features Paige Marta Skiba

October 3, 2007

The Vanderbilt View magazine features new professor Paige Marta Skiba.

 

Viscusi garners second EPA grant of 2007

August 23, 2007

Vanderbilt University has received an EPA award for $120,000 for a project titled “The Appropriateness of Panel Based Findings.” University Distinguished Professor W. Kip Viscusi is the Project Director. The study will determine the effectiveness of panel based internet survey administration as well as the accuracy of survey results. The project will involve collaborative work with Duke University and will be completed by 2011.

 

Interview of W. Kip Viscusi 

July 25, 2007 

Region Focus (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia - Spring 2007 edition) does a Q&A with W. Kip Viscusi about risk and measures aimed at improving public safety.

 

Viscusi garners USDA and EPA STAR grants

April 20, 2007

The Economics Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded Vanderbilt a grant in conjunction with Resources for the Future, a non-profit, non-partisan think-tank based in Washington, D.C., to study mad cow disease. Vanderbilt’s share of the funding for this project, "Managing Invasive Species Risks,” is $78,439. The project will be completed this year.

Vanderbilt University will also receive an EPA STAR award for $675,173 for a study of the economic value of morbidity risks in drinking water in a project titled "The Economic Value of Health Improvements to Drinking Water."  This project will involve collaborative work with Duke University and will be completed in 2009. University Distinguished Professor W. Kip Viscusi is Project Director for both projects.

 

Study by economist Joni Hersch reveals that lighter and taller equals a bigger paycheck for immigrants

January 25, 2007

A new study by Vanderbilt University Professor of Law and Economics Joni Hersch found legal immigrants in the United States with a lighter skin tone made more money than those with darker skin.

Professor Hersch used data from 2,084 men and women who participated in the 2003 New Immigrant Survey. An interviewer reported the person’s skin color using an 11-point scale where 0 represented the absence of color and 10 represented the darkest possible skin color.

Even when taking into consideration characteristics that might affect wages, such as English language proficiency, work experience and education, Professor Hersch found immigrants with the lightest skin color earned, on average, 8 percent to 15 percent more than immigrants with the darkest skin tone. She said the effect of skin color even persisted among workers with the same ethnicity, race and country of origin.

Professor Hersch’s research also found height played a part in salary. Taller immigrants earned more, with every inch adding an additional 1 percent to wages.

Professor Hersch considered various explanations for skin color’s effect on wages, such as discrimination in country of birth, the possibility that darker skin color is caused by outdoor work, which is lower paying, and interviewer bias. After ruling out those explanations, she concluded that discrimination is the strongest explanation for why lighter and taller immigrants make more money.

 “I was surprised and dismayed at how strong and persistent the skin color effect was even after I considered a whole series of alternative interpretations and explanations,” she said.

Professor Hersch will present her research at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference on Feb. 19.

Read related New York Times article.

-- Story by Amy L. Wolf, Vanderbilt University Public Affairs

Read related Washington Post article.

 

Dean Emeritus Henry Manne, internationally renowned founder of the law and economics movement, visits VULS

November 30, 2006

On Tuesday, November 14, 2006, Henry Manne, Dean Emeritus, George Mason University School of Law, gave a well-attended kick-off talk for the new Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics, “What Every Lawyer Should Know about the Intellectual History of Law and Economics.” With a B.A. in economics from Vanderbilt University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago , Manne pioneered the development of a working relationship between law and economics with his summer Economics Institute for Law Professors. Manne was a visionary who believed that law needed to maintain a connection to other disciplines, and that economics was the most “powerful and applicable cross-disciplinary tool to use in collaboration with law.”  The impact of his work continues to influence scholars today and illuminates the importance of the distinctive contributions we expect our graduates will make to the expanding field of law and economics.

Manne attracts an enthusiastic audience

Henry Manne with Kip Viscusi

 

Viscusi honored with Coase Prize and by Kentucky Economic Association

October 30, 2006

W. Kip Viscusi and his coauthor, Richard Zeckhauser, were awarded the 2006 Ronald H. Coase Prize by the University of Chicago Law School for their article, "Recollection Bias and the Combat of Terrorism," which was published in the Journal of Legal Studies. The prize is awarded for excellence in the study of law and economics. Professor Viscusi was also named the Kentucky Economic Association's Distinguished Economist of the Year. He presented the keynote address, "Public and Private Costs of Smoking," at the organization's annual conference in Lexington on October 13.

 

W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch join Vanderbilt law faculty

January 24, 2006

W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch, law and economics scholars at Harvard Law School, will join the Vanderbilt faculty later this year as the law school launches the first program of its kind - a Ph.D. in law and economics.

By successfully recruiting two of the nation's premier scholars in law and applied economics, Vanderbilt Law School has embarked on the next generation of law and economics education: a combination of professional and academic degrees that will train scholars not only for academic positions, but also for legal practice, policy-making and public interest work.

"Kip and Joni do foundational work in law, economics and social science," said Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Nicholas S. Zeppos. "These are two spectacular appointments for the law school and whole university. They will also be wonderful university colleagues and citizens."

"I am honored to have Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch join our faculty," said Vanderbilt Law School Dean Edward Rubin. "Both have had distinguished careers as leaders in the application of economics to law. They join us not only as individual scholars but also to create a truly innovative program that will combine two degrees within a single institution and represents the next stage in interdisciplinary education for American law schools."

Viscusi is the John F. Cogan Jr. Professor of Law and Economics and director of the Program on Empirical Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, where he has taught since 1996.

Pending Board of Trust approval next month, Viscusi will become University Distinguished Professor of Law and Economics, with primary appointments in law, business and economics. He is one of only five people at Vanderbilt with the University Professor designation, and Vanderbilt's only University Distinguished Professor.

A University Professor holds tenured, primary appointments in at least two schools of the university and has full-status appointments in each, participating in the teaching, research and service missions of each school. The Vanderbilt law faculty includes one other University Professor, James F. Blumstein, University Professor of Constitutional Law & Health Law and Policy.

Viscusi earned his undergraduate degree in economics, master's degrees in economics and public policy and doctorate in economics, all from Harvard. He is the award-winning author of more than 20 books and 250 articles, most of which are concerned with different aspects of health and safety risk. His research focuses on individual and societal responses to risk and uncertainty, and he is widely regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on cost-benefit analysis.

Viscusi's estimates of the value of risks to life and health have become the standard used throughout the federal government. He has served as a consultant to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Department of Justice on issues pertaining to the valuation of life and health. He was deputy director of the Council of Wage and Price Stability in the Carter administration. He served on the Science Advisory Board of the EPA for seven years and currently serves on the agency's Homeland Security Committee.

Prior to his time at Harvard, he was the Allen Professor of Economics at Duke University , professor of economics at Northwestern University and the Olin Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago .

Viscusi is the founding editor of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty and has served on the editorial boards of a dozen other journals. He is co-author of Economics of Regulation and Antitrust and wrote Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Postmortem on the Tobacco Deal.

"Kip has been a pioneer in the application of cost-benefit analysis to the administrative state. This has become the dominant form of regulatory analysis by the country's executive branch," Rubin said. "In a field that is often distinguished by overheated ideology, he has distinguished himself as a balanced and objective analyst whose work commands respect from all sides of the political spectrum."

Hersch is adjunct professor of law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught since 1999. Prior to that, she was professor of economics at the University of Wyoming. She has published numerous articles on the gender differences in labor market outcomes, the economics of home production, job risks and product safety. Her recent research examines gender differences in the labor market for lawyers, smoking regulations, health disparities, judge and jury behavior and breast implant litigation.

Hersch is co-editor of Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century. In a field long dominated by men, she is renowned as one of the top female economists in the world.

Pending Board of Trust approval next month, Hersch will have a tenured appointment at the law school and secondary appointments at the Owen Graduate School of Management and in the economics department in the College of Arts and Science.

"Joni brings to the law school not only a distinguished academic career in economics, but also a path-breaking ability to teach empirical methods to lawyers and a focus on feminist issues that will greatly benefit our students," Rubin said. "Although top law schools typically have faculty with economics degrees, they do not offer the sophisticated approach to law and economics that Vanderbilt will as it bridges between law, economics and business."

While details of the curriculum will be finalized after Viscusi and Hersch arrive at Vanderbilt, it is expected that courses in the program will be open to students in law, economics and business and taught primarily by law school, economics department and Owen School faculty. The degree will be administered by the Graduate School. Rubin said he also anticipates there will be post-doctoral fellows associated with the program.

Viscusi and Hersch expressed excitement over starting a unique program at Vanderbilt. "The law and economics movement is the most important innovation in legal scholarship in the past half century," Viscusi said. "Vanderbilt Law School will be launching the first J.D./Ph.D. program in the country focusing on law and economics. We are delighted to be an integral part of this exciting new venture along with our new colleagues in the law school, economics department and business school, and we are confident that the program will be a success given the strong support we have received from Chancellor Gee, Provost Zeppos and Dean Rubin, who are true academic visionaries."

"It's exciting to do what no other law school has done, and to take the lead in what we believe is the wave of the future in law and economics education," Rubin said.

Viscusi and Hersch were recruited to Vanderbilt by a team that included Chancellor Gordon Gee, Zeppos, Dean Rubin, Owen School Dean James W. Bradford, and College of Arts and Science Dean Richard C. McCarty.

Robert B. Thompson, New York Alumni Chancellor Professor of Law and chair of the law school's Faculty Appointments Committee for lateral hires, notes that adding Viscusi and Hersch to the law school's faculty "would be the highlight of any year. Not only will they bring a distinguished body of scholarly writing, but they expand the reach of those of us already here. Vanderbilt will be distinctive in what it is able to do in law and economics," he said.

 
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