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Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation
Policymakers use estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) in performing regulatory reviews to assess the benefits and costs of policies that affect mortality. This paper empirically estimates an adjustment to conventional VSL measures to account for altruistic sentiments and concludes that...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Netherlands
2021
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8485118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34611375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7 |
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author | Long, Mark C. |
author_facet | Long, Mark C. |
author_sort | Long, Mark C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Policymakers use estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) in performing regulatory reviews to assess the benefits and costs of policies that affect mortality. This paper empirically estimates an adjustment to conventional VSL measures to account for altruistic sentiments and concludes that conventional VSL measures are underestimated by a factor of two to three, suggesting we are greatly undervaluing life in regulatory reviews. This conclusion is attained by estimating the VSL multiplier suggested by Jones-Lee (Econ J 102(410):80–90, 1992), which hinges on assessing whether individuals are more health altruistic than wealth altruistic. The estimated VSL multiplier is greatest for policies that affect children’s mortality, as health altruism is dominant regarding children. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8485118 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Netherlands |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-84851182021-10-01 Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation Long, Mark C. Soc Indic Res Original Research Policymakers use estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) in performing regulatory reviews to assess the benefits and costs of policies that affect mortality. This paper empirically estimates an adjustment to conventional VSL measures to account for altruistic sentiments and concludes that conventional VSL measures are underestimated by a factor of two to three, suggesting we are greatly undervaluing life in regulatory reviews. This conclusion is attained by estimating the VSL multiplier suggested by Jones-Lee (Econ J 102(410):80–90, 1992), which hinges on assessing whether individuals are more health altruistic than wealth altruistic. The estimated VSL multiplier is greatest for policies that affect children’s mortality, as health altruism is dominant regarding children. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7. Springer Netherlands 2021-10-01 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8485118/ /pubmed/34611375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Long, Mark C. Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title | Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title_full | Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title_fullStr | Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title_full_unstemmed | Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title_short | Altruism and the Statistical Value of Human Life for Policy and Regulation |
title_sort | altruism and the statistical value of human life for policy and regulation |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8485118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34611375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02784-7 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT longmarkc altruismandthestatisticalvalueofhumanlifeforpolicyandregulation |