Bio

W. Kip Viscusi, Ph.D., is Vanderbilt's first University Distinguished Professor. His estimates of the value of risks to life and health are currently used throughout the Federal government. (Read more)

Headshots of W. Kip Viscusi (headshot 1) (headshot 2) (headshot 3)

Contact

615-343-7715 (voice)
Law School Room 280 (office)
kip.viscusi@vanderbilt.edu

Mailing Address: 

Professor W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt University Law School
131 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203-1181

Curriculum Vitae
W. Kip Viscusi at SSRN
Books by W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Profile

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W. Kip Viscusi is the author of more than 30 books, including  Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018) and Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, Fifth Edition ,  with Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. and David E. M. Sappington. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018). 

"From probably the world's leading thinker on the valuation of mortality risks, Pricing Lives makes a fundamental, enduring contribution."  

—Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School


Read selected reviews of Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society  here.

 

"How do the authors do it? The book keeps getting better and better. There is simply no point in doing an economics of regulation course without having the fifth edition of this book available."

—Thomas J. Kniesner, Claremont Graduate University

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Selected Presentations and Media Appearances

November 2020: Presidential address, "Economic Lessons for COVID-19 Pandemic Policies," 90th Southern Economic Association's Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. Text available at SSRN. 

April 2020: "The Value of a Statistical Life," interview with Q+A (New Zealand talk show). 

April 2020: "Lives vs. the Economy," interview with NPR Planet Money, Episode 991.

April 2020: "Kip Viscusi on the Value of a Statistical Life and Coronavirus," interview with Technology Policy Institute's Two Think Minimum podcast. 

July 2017: Keynote address, "Pricing Lives for Policy," Annual Conference of the Economic Society of Australia, Sydney, AU. 

Tweets by W. Kip Viscusi

Featured News

November 2020: W. Kip Viscusi gave the presidential address at the 90th Southern Economic Association's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA. Professor Viscusi's presentation was titled "Economic Lessons for COVID-19 Pandemic Policies." Below, Professor Viscusi is presented with the SEA Presidential gavel and plaque by SEA Secretary/Treasurer Benjamin Powell. 

October 2020:  Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society (2018) was published in paperback. Professor Viscusi's book also received the Kulp-Wright Book Award for Best Book of 2020 from the American Risk and Insurance Association. 

August 2019: W. Kip Viscusi received Vanderbilt's most prestigious faculty honor for accomplishments in research—the Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research.