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Compensating differentials for the risk of reinjury - lessons from professional boxing

A neglected area in the compensating-differential literature is how wages compensate workers for the risk of reinjury, specifically the risk of a subsequent mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI). Using a new, unbalanced panel of 1,211 professional boxers, this paper finds that boxers' purses price for the risk of knockout reinjury risk while those that have never lost by knockout earn economically and statistically insignificant knockout-risk premiums. These results are consistent across three measures of previous knockout loss and three robustness tests, implying that current values of a statistical injury (VSI) underestimate previously injured workers' willingness to pay for safety.
© Copyright 2025 Journal of Sports Economics. SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

Bibliographic Details
Subjects:
Notations:biological and medical sciences combat sports
Published in:Journal of Sports Economics
Language:English
Published: 2025
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025221120592
Volume:26
Issue:2
Pages:148-171
Document types:article
Level:advanced