Taking “All Men Are Created Equal” Seriously: Toward a Metric for the Intergroup Comparison of Utility Functions Through Life Values

Abstract

The use of wage differential techniques to estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL) leads to the conclusion that willingness to pay for risk reduction increases with income. However, the use of this result in policy-relevant calculations, such as benefit-cost analysis, has led to criticism among ethicists and the lay public, at the same time as it has been defended in the economic literature. In this paper, we argue that differential valuation measures not a differential value that individuals place upon their own lives, but a differential value that they place upon marginal economic resources. Using two sets of VSL estimates from metastudies, we provide an initial estimate of the relative marginal value of income, allowing interpersonal comparison at the societal level. With these results, we propose an empirically determined, ethically justifiable social welfare function that can be easily incorporated into benefit-cost analysis and that has important implications for development economics, although more work is necessary to provide a robust estimate.

How Much Is a Human Life Worth? A Systematic Review

“…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.…”

Solid waste management in the context of the waste hierarchy and circular economy frameworks: An international critical review

“…Neoliberal economic theory argues that there is sound economic logic in dumping (toxic) waste in the Global South countries as part of development policy, and as a logical outcome of market forces (Courard-Hauri & Lauer, 2012). Such trade has recently focused on opportunities for recipients to extract resources from waste as recyclable components and used goods to create income-generating opportunities, possibly reducing the environmental burdens (Cotta, 2020).…”