Value of statistical life in Russia based on microdata

Value of statistical life (VSL) is a widely used instrument for risk monetizing towards public policy planning in many developed countries. In Russia, due to the lack of data required for calculations, there are practically no credible estimates comparable in terms of methodology used, while those that are obtained using a different methodology hereupon differ significantly in magnitude. In our research, the value of statistical life in Russia is estimated using the comparable to foreign studies’ methodology, based on the RLMS-HSE survey microdata, the Russian (Rosstat) data, and the U.S. (BLS CFOI) data on occupational risks for 2018. The basic idea of this approach is to determine the willingness of employees to accept compensation for occupational risk. The resulting estimates of the VSL are in the range from 366,2 to 497,6 million rubles (2018). These values are significantly higher than all available estimates for Russia obtained using a different methodology but comparable to the corresponding values calculated with a similar methodology for the United States, considering the difference in GDP per capita at PPP.