The theory of compensating wage differentials, attributable to Adam Smith, suggests that jobs with disagreeable characteristics will command high wages, ceteris paribus. Most empirical tests of this theory with hedonic wage equations implicitly assume that workers' willingness to pay for risk reduction (safety) in the workplace through diminished wages, and market valuations of the "price" of these reductions, are equivalent. It is shown that this is not the case within the manufacturing sector where willingness to pay exceeds the price (cost) of risk reduction at current levels of risk exposure. Implications for implied value of life estimates are also examined.