Biography
W. Kip Viscusi is Vanderbilt's first University Distinguished Professor, with tenured appointments in the Department of Economics, the Owen Graduate School of Management and the Law School. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, Professor Viscusi was the Cogan Professor of Law and Economics and director of the Program on Empirical Studies at Harvard Law School. He has also been the Allen Professor of Economics at Duke University and professor of economics at Northwestern University.
Viscusi is the award-winning author of more than 30 books and over 400 articles, most of which deal with different aspects of health and safety risks. His pathbreaking research has addressed a wide range of individual and societal responses to risk and uncertainty, including risky behaviors, government regulation and tort liability. He is widely regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on benefit-cost analysis. Viscusi's estimates of the value of risks to life and health are currently used throughout the federal government. His book Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society synthesized much of his work in this area. In the Carter administration, he was deputy director of the Council of Wage and Price Stability, which was responsible for White House oversight over all new federal regulations. He has served on different panels of the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for over a decade. Viscusi has served as president of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis and the Southern Economic Association.
Viscusi is the founding editor of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, which he has edited since 1988. He recently collaborated with Joseph Harrington and David Sappington on the fifth edition of his textbook, Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, which has retained its monopoly position in that field. In 2019 he received the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research, Vanderbilt’s most prestigious honor for faculty research and scholarship. He is the third most frequently cited U.S. law professor according to Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports (Google Scholar h-index).
Programs
Education
A.B., M.P.P., A.M., Ph.D., Harvard University
Publications
Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of State Recycling and Deposit Laws: Household Recycling Following Interstate Moves
‘Sorry’ Is Never Enough: How State Apology Laws Fail to Reduce Medical Malpractice Liability Risk
“‘Sorry’ Is Never Enough: How State Apology Laws Fail to Reduce Medical Malpractice Liability Risk,” with Benjamin J. McMichael and R. Lawrence Van Horn, Stanford Law Review, Vol. 71, No. 2 (February 2019), pp. 341–409.
FULL TEXT: | PDFPricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society
Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society (Princeton University Press, 2018; paperback edition, 2020). Winner of the 2020 Kulp-Wright Award for Best Book of the Year by the American Risk and Insurance Association.
FULL TEXT: | WWWHandbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty
Handbook of the Economics of Risk and Uncertainty, edited with Mark J. Machina (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2014).
Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, and Economic Incentives
“Promoting Recycling: Private Values, Social Norms, and Economic Incentives,” with Joel Huber and Jason Bell, American Economic Review, Vol. 101, No. 3 (May 2011), pp. 65–70. Reprinted in Thomas Sterner and Jessica Coria, eds., The Economics of Environmental Policy: Behavioral and Political Dimensions, International Library of Critical Writings in Economics (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016).
FULL TEXT: SSRNThe Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World
“The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World,” with Joseph E. Aldy, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Vol. 27, No. 1 (August 2003), pp. 5–76. Reprinted in Andrew Schmitz and Richard O. Zerbe, Jr., eds., Applied Benefit-Cost Analysis (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2009).
FULL TEXT: SSRNAre Risk Regulators Rational? Evidence from Hazardous Waste Cleanup Decisions
“Are Risk Regulators Rational? Evidence from Hazardous Waste Cleanup Decisions,” with James T. Hamilton, American Economic Review, Vol. 89, No. 4 (September 1999), pp. 1010–1027. Reprinted in Jacqueline Geoghan and Wayne Gray, eds., Spatial Aspects of Environmental Policy (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Publishing, 2006). Reprinted in Jeroen C. J. van den Bergh, Kenneth Button, and Peter Nijkamp, eds., Environmental Planning (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007). Reprinted in Hilary A. Sigman, ed., The Economics of Hazardous Waste and Contaminated Land (Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008).
FULL TEXT: SSRNEconomics of Regulation and Antitrust
Economics of Regulation and Antitrust (Cambridge: MIT Press, 5th edition 2018) (with Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. and David Sappington).
Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Postmortem on the Tobacco Deal
Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Postmortem on the Tobacco Deal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
FULL TEXT: | WWWPunitive Damages: How Juries Decide, with Cass R. Sunstein, Reid Hastie, John Payne and David Schkade
Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide, with Cass R. Sunstein, Reid Hastie, John Payne and David Schkade (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). In hardcover and paperback.
Jurors, Judges, and the Mistreatment of Risk by the Courts
“Jurors, Judges, and the Mistreatment of Risk by the Courts,” Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 2001), pp. 107–142.
FULL TEXT: SSRNCorporate Risk Analysis: A Reckless Act?
“Corporate Risk Analysis: A Reckless Act?” Stanford Law Review, Vol. 52, No. 3 (February 2000), pp. 547–597.
FULL TEXT: | JSTORCalculating Risks
Calculating Risks?: The Spatial and Political Dimensions of Hazardous Waste Policy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999), with James T. Hamilton.
Rational Risk Policy: The 1996 Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures
Rational Risk Policy: The 1996 Arne Ryde Memorial Lectures (Oxford: Clarendon Press-Oxford University Press, 1998). Winner of the Kulp Memorial Award, Best Book of 2000, American Risk and Insurance Association.
Fatal Tradeoffs: Public and Private Responsibilities for Risk
Fatal Tradeoffs: Public and Private Responsibilities for Risk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) (paperback edition, 1995). Winner of the Kulp Memorial Award, Best Book of 1994, American Risk and Insurance Association.
Reforming Products Liability
Reforming Products Liability (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). Winner of the Kulp Memorial Award, Best Book of 1993, American Risk and Insurance Association.
FULL TEXT: | WWWEmployment Hazards: An Investigation of Market Performance, Harvard Economic Studies No. 148
Employment Hazards: An Investigation of Market Performance, Harvard Economic Studies No. 148 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). Winner of the David Wells Prize for outstanding economics dissertation, Harvard University.
FULL TEXT: | WWWUtility Functions that Depend on Health Status: Estimates and Economic Implications
“Utility Functions that Depend on Health Status: Estimates and Economic Implications,” with William N. Evans, American Economic Review, Vol. 80, No. 3 (June 1990), pp. 353–374. Ranked as 9th most cited article on health and its value, 1969.
FULL TEXT: | JSTOR