Monetary values of increasing life expectancy: sensitivity to shifts of the survival curve

James K. Hammitt and Tuba Tuncel

No 23-1416, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

Abstract: Individuals’ monetary values of decreases in mortality risk depend on the magnitude and timing of the risk reduction. We elicited stated preferences among three time paths of risk reduction yielding the same increase in life expectancy (decreasing risk for the next decade, subtracting a constant from or multiplying risk by a constant in all future years) and willingness to pay (WTP) for risk reductions differing in timing and life-expectancy gain. Respondents exhibited heterogeneous preferences over the alternative time paths, with almost 90 percent reporting transitive orderings. WTP is statistically significantly associated with life-expectancy gain (between about 7 and 28 days) and with respondents’ stated preferences over the alternative time paths. Estimated value per statistical life year (VSLY) can differ by time path and averages about $500,000, roughly consistent with conventional estimates obtained by dividing estimated value per statistical life by discounted life expectancy.

Keywords: value per statistical life: value per statistical life year; mortality risk, stated preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D61 I18 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/docu ... 2023/wp_tse_1416.pdf Full Text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tse:wpaper:127946

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().