Pricing Lives: International Guideposts for Safety

Viscusi, W. Kip

doi:10.1111/1475-4932.12396

Cited by 13 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Federal policy decisions are guided by a substantial literature in this area. Current estimates for the United States by Viscusi (2018Viscusi ( , 2020 give a single value of $10 million to each life regardless of age or alternatively $500 thousand per year of life. Applying these numbers to the scenario we are considering, we see that a million coronavirus deaths would be valued at $10 trillion, while 12.3 million person years of life would be valued at about $6 trillion.…”

Section: The Value Of Life Savedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic Perspectives on Mortality of Covid-19 and Other Epidemics

2020

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What would a hypothetical one million US deaths in the Covid-19 epidemic mean for mortality of individuals at the population level? To put estimates of Covid-19 mortality into perspective, we estimate age-specific mortality for an epidemic claiming for illustrative purposes one million US lives, with results scalable over a broad range of deaths. We calculate the impact on period life expectancy (down 3 years) and remaining life-years (12.3 years per death), which for one million deaths can be valued at six to 10 trillion dollars. The age-patterns of Covid-19 mortality observed in other countries are remarkably similar and exhibit the typical rate of increase by age of normal mortality. The scenario of one million Covid-19 deaths is similar in scale to the decades-long HIV/AIDS and opioid-overdose epidemics but considerably smaller than the Spanish Flu of 1918. Unlike HIV/AIDS and opioid epidemics, the Covid-19 deaths will be concentrated in months rather than spread out over decades.

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Section: The Value Of Life Savedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic Perspectives on Mortality of Covid-19 and Other Epidemics

2020

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“…However, this database might underestimate the VSL in the United States and even other higher-income countries. For example, Viscusi (2018) estimated that the VSL in the US is US$10 million based on a hedonic wage approach, which is much higher than the benefit-transfer estimate (US$ 4.5 million in the US) used in this study. If we adopt a VSL of US$ 10 million in the US, the health cost of PM2.5 in the US will be US$1.02 trillion (0.81, 1.22).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…15 Therefore, an age-invariant VSL will lead to higher health economic cost estimates for the older population and an age-invariant VSLY will generate higher cost estimates for young people. 59 Since air pollution disproportionately affects the older population, individuals’ risk-money tradeoff varies as their age, mortality rate and socioeconomic status change. 60 Applying the age-adjusted VSLY improves our knowledge on the health cost of mortality attributable to air pollution, especially in an ageing society.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Economic Cost of Deaths Attributable to Ambient Air Pollution: Disproportionate Burden on the Ageing Population

Yin

Bräuer

Zhang

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Summary Background The health impacts of ambient air pollution impose large costs on society. While all people are exposed to air pollution, older individuals tend to be disproportionally affected. As a result, there is growing concern about the public health impacts of air pollution as many countries undergo rapid population ageing. We investigated the spatial and temporal variation in the health economic cost of deaths attributable to ambient air pollution, and its interaction with population ageing from 2000 to 2016 at global and regional levels. Methods We developed an age-adjusted measure of the value of a statistical life year (VSLY) to estimate the health economic cost attributable to ambient PM2.5 pollution using the Global Burden of Disease 2017 data and country-level socioeconomic information. First, we estimated the global age- and cause-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLL) attributable to PM2.5 pollution using the global exposure mortality model (GEMM) and global estimates of exposure derived from ground monitoring, satellite retrievals and chemical transport model simulations at 0.1 by 0.1 degree (~11 km at the equator) resolution. Second, for each year between 2000 and 2016, we translated the YLL within each age-group into a health-related economic cost using a country-specific, age-adjusted measure of VSLY. Third, we decomposed the major driving factors that contributed to the temporal change in health costs related to PM2.5. Finally, we conducted a sensitivity test to analyze the variability of the estimated health costs to four alternative valuation measures. We identified the uncertainty intervals (UIs) from 1000 draws of the parameters and exposure-response functions by age, cause, country and year. All economic values are reported in 2011 purchasing-power-parity-adjusted US dollars. Findings Globally, 8.42 million (95% UI: 6.50, 10.52) deaths and 163.68 million (116.03, 219.44) YLL were attributable to ambient PM2.5 in 2016. The average attributable mortality for the older population was 12 times higher than for those younger than 60 years old. In 2016, the global health economic cost of ambient PM2.5 pollution for the older population was US$2.40 trillion (1.89, 2.93) accounting for 59% of the cost for the total population. The health cost for the older population alone was equivalent to 2.1% (1.7%, 2.6%) of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016. While the economic cost per capita for the older population was US$2739 (2160, 3345) in 2016, the cost per capita for the younger population was only US$268 (205, 335). From 2000 to 2016, the annual global health economic cost for the total population increased from US$2.37 trillion (1.88, 2.87) to US$4.09 trillion (3.19, 5.05). Decomposing the factors that contributed to the rise in health economic costs, we found that increases in GDP per capita, population ageing, population growth, age-specific mortality reduction, and PM2.5 exposure changed the total health economic cost by 77%, 21.2%, 15.6%, -41.1% and -0.2%, respectively. Compared to using an age-invariant VSLY or an age-invariant value of a statistical life (VSL), the estimates of the older population share of the total health economic cost using an age-adjusted VSLY was 2 and 18 percentage points lower, respectively. Interpretation The health economic cost borne by the older population almost doubled between 2000 and 2016, driven primarily by GDP growth, population ageing and population growth. Compared to younger individuals, air pollution leads to disproportionately higher health costs amongst the older population, even after accounting for their relatively shorter remaining life expectancy and increased disability. The age-specific estimates of health economic cost inform the optimal design of air pollution reduction strategies and allocation of healthcare resources. The positive relationship between age and economic costs suggests that countries with severe air pollution and rapid aging rates would particularly benefit from improving their air quality. In addition, strategies aimed at enhancing healthcare services, especially for the older population, may be beneficial for reducing the costs of ambient air pollution.

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“…There have been numerous literature reviews, [11][12][13][14][15][16] meta-analyses, 4,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] and discussion articles 2,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] on the topic of the VSL, likely owing to the controversial ethical nature of assigning a monetary value to a life and the wide range of published estimates. Appendix Table 1 (in Supplemental Materials found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2021.04.003) summarizes the previously published reviews and meta-analyses with a focus on the period from 2009 to 2019.…”

Section: Methods For Eliciting the Vslmentioning

confidence: 99%