Life value

The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF) and implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF). In social and political sciences, it is the marginal cost of death prevention in a certain class of circumstances. In many studies the value also includes the quality of life, the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potential of a given person especially for an after the fact payment in a wrongful death claim lawsuit.Suppose each person in a sample of 100,000 people were asked how much he or she would be willing to pay for a reduction in their individual risk of dying of 1 in 100,000, or 0.001%, over the next year. Since this reduction in risk would mean that we would expect one fewer death among the sample of 100,000 people over the next year on average, this is sometimes described as 'one statistical life saved.” Now suppose that the average response to this hypothetical question was $100. Then the total dollar amount that the group would be willing to pay to save one statistical life in a year would be $100 per person × 100,000 people, or $10 million. This is what is meant by the 'value of a statistical life.” 'That means that if Medicare paid an additional $129,000 to treat a group of patients, on average, group members would get one more quality-adjusted life year.' The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality. It is also referred to as the cost of life, value of preventing a fatality (VPF) and implied cost of averting a fatality (ICAF). In social and political sciences, it is the marginal cost of death prevention in a certain class of circumstances. In many studies the value also includes the quality of life, the expected life time remaining, as well as the earning potential of a given person especially for an after the fact payment in a wrongful death claim lawsuit. As such, it is a statistical term, the cost of reducing the average number of deaths by one. It is an important issue in a wide range of disciplines including economics, health care, adoption, political economy, insurance, worker safety, environmental impact assessment, and globalization. In industrial nations, the justice system considers a human life 'priceless', thus illegalizing any form of slavery; i.e., humans cannot be bought at any price. However, with a limited supply of resources or infrastructural capital (e.g. ambulances), or skill at hand, it is impossible to save every life, so some trade-off must be made. Also, this argument neglects the statistical context of the term. It is not commonly attached to lives of individuals or used to compare the value of one person's life relative to another person's. It is mainly used in circumstances of saving lives as opposed to taking lives or 'producing' lives. There is no standard concept for the value of a specific human life in economics. However, when looking at risk/reward trade-offs that people make with regard to their health, economists often consider the value of a statistical life (VSL). Note that the VSL is very different from the value of an actual life. It is the value placed on changes in the likelihood of death, not the price someone would pay to avoid certain death. This is best explained by way of an example. From the EPA's website: This again emphasizes that VSL is more of an estimate of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks rather than how much a human life is worth. Using government spending to see how much is spent to save lives in order to estimate the average individual VSL is a popular method of calculation. The United States government does not have an official value of life threshold, but different values are used in different agencies. It might be that the government values lives quite highly or that calculation standards are not applied uniformly. Using the EPA as an example, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution in their cost-benefit analyses. Economists often estimate the VSL by looking at the risks that people are voluntarily willing to take and how much they must be paid for taking them. This method is known as revealed preference, where the actions of the individual reveal how much they value something. In this context, economists would look at how much individuals are willing to pay for something that reduces their chance of dying. Similarly, compensating differentials, which are the reduced or additional wage payments that are intended to compensate workers for conveniences or downsides of a job, can be used for VSL calculations. For example, a job that is more dangerous for a worker’s health might require that the worker be compensated more. The compensating differentials method has several weaknesses. One issue is that the approach assumes that people have information, which is not always available. Another issue is that people may have higher or lower perceptions of risk they are facing that do not equate to actual statistical risk. In general, it is difficult for people to accurately understand and assess risk. It also hard to control for other aspects of a job or different types of work when using this method. Overall, revealed preference may not represent population preferences as a whole because of the differences between individuals. One method that can be used to calculate VSL is summing the total present discounted value of lifetime earnings. There are a couple of problems using this method. One potential source of variability is that different discount rates can be used in this calculation, resulting in dissimilar VSL estimates. Another potential issue when using wages to value life is that the calculation does not take into account the value of time that is not spent working, such as vacation or leisure. As a result, VSL estimates may be inaccurate because time spent on leisure could be valued at a higher rate than an individual's wage. Another method used to estimate VSL is contingent valuation. Contingent valuation asks individuals to value an option either that they have not chosen or are unable to currently choose. Economists might estimate the VSL by simply asking people (e.g. through questionnaires) how much they would be willing to pay for a reduction in the likelihood of dying, perhaps by purchasing safety improvements. These types of studies are referred to as stated preference studies. However, contingent valuation has some flaws. The first problem is known as the isolation of issues, where participants may give different values when asked to value something alone versus when they are asked to value multiple things. The order of how these issues are presented to people matters as well. Another potential issue is the “embedding effect” identified by Diamond and Hausman 1994. All of these methods might result in a VSL that is overstated or understated.