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This article estimates the value of a statistical life (VSL) for Chile under the hedonic wage method while accounting for individual risk preferences. Two alternative measures of risk aversion are used. First, risk aversion is directly measured using survey measures of preferences over hypothetical gambles, and second, over observed individual behaviors that may proxy for risk preferences, such as smoking status, are used. I reconcile the results with a theoretical model of economic behavior that predicts how the wage‐risk tradeoff changes as risk aversion differs across individuals. The VSL estimates range between 0.61 and 8.68 million dollars. The results using smoking behavior as a proxy for risk attitudes are consistent with previous findings. However, directly measuring risk aversion corrects the wage‐risk tradeoff estimation bias in the opposite direction. The results are robust to other observed measures of risk aversion such as drinking behavior and stock investments. Results suggest that, consistent with the literature that connects smoking behavior with labor market outcomes, smoking status could be capturing poor health productivity effect in addition to purely risk preferences.

This paper estimates the impact of social pension programs on retirement planning in rural China, focusing on the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS). Retirement planning is defined as an individual's intention to detach from the workforce at a given age instead of working for as long as physically possible. We also consider an individual's self‐reported health characteristics and subjective life expectancy. Overall, we find that the NRPS does not incentivize younger workers (those under 60 years of age) to plan their retirement; instead, they are more likely to remain in the workforce permanently to compensate for the additional costs. However, the NRPS provides a greater incentive for older workers (those 60 years of age and older) to plan their retirement than if there was no scheme. This result is particularly relevant for older unhealthy workers with a longer subjective life expectancy. We also find evidence that mental health status is key for the effectiveness of the policy.

Advances in medical technology have made organ transplants one of the best health treatment alternatives for several diseases, generating a significant increase in organ demand. However, the supply of organs, both from living or postmortem donors, has not increased at the same rate (Howard 2007). Policy makers have suggested different strategies for increasing organ donation, including the introduction of financial and monetary incentives (Stoler et al. 2017). The scarcity of organs for transplantation is a worldwide problem. In the United States, 10,000 people die every year while waiting for an organ, and the median waiting time goes from 2 to 6 years (Beard et al. 2013; Roth et al. 2005). In Western Europe, approximately 40,000 patients are waiting for an organ (Mossialos et al. 2008). Developed countries tend to have higher cadaveric donation rates than developing countries, while, the reverse is true for living donation (International Registry in Organ Donation and Transplantation 2017). Based on the discussion on incentivizing organ donation using financial mechanisms, this paper performs a cost-benefit analysis on the introduction of monetary incentives for living kidney donations in a developing country. We consider the case for Chile,