What is the Value of a Statistical Life?
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- An explanation of the economic concept of the value of as statistical life, what it is, why economists calculate it, how they calculate it, and why philosophers might be concerned about it.
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My non-expert 2cents. Capital concentrated due to historical events and peoples behaviors reflect that preexisting gradient. This system appears overly reliant on an individual's self-valuation which is only a result of their background from the greater historical narrative. Ie it is feedback that on the whole only sustains the preexisting disparities. Of course someone who is poor is going to spend less on protective equipment. They also have to eat and provide shelter which is difficult given their historical circumstances.
Eyy congrats on the book being out bro. I hope to see more on the come up 🤞👍
Hey, I finished reading the book overall it was pretty good! I do have an objection to the book though, even though the percentage willingness to pay was better than absolute willingness to pay in almost every metric I did think there could be an even better way than both. If we did want to maximize utility shouldn't we save people whose lives could save more? for example, if you can save a life of a doctor or the lives of three African farmers wouldn't saving the doctor's life be more valuable because the doctor in turn can save more lives? and in this sense, because richer countries have more capital and therefore the ability to create more value shouldn't we value richer lives more and use their capital value to send the excess to poorer countries?
I think valuing statistical lives is good and could have given us a lot better policies throughout COVID. For example, a cost benefit analysis of how many lives would be lost from shutting down the economy versus death from COVID, once that was known, in addition to perhaps valuing things like mental health degradation, people losing their livelihoods, etc. We may have made different choices
There actually were some studies that came out about this right when the pandemic hit, though they likely didn't take all of the impacts into account.
Was it about saving lives tho? 😕
Just a perfect example of life not being valued highly enough.
It cost more to make one piece of military equipment used to take us out, if on the "wrong" side lol.
Regarding "Apocalyptococcus" and "Rarity Fever", governments took collective decisions, but we might think of individual decisions too (and how the sum of those decisions affects the (psychology of the) community where those individuals take those decisions and so on and so forth, we humans are so interesting after all!). I heard an artist comment on that ("apocalyptococcus"), saying that to live is not to close yourself in a room for fear of going outside. He had a point. And some people will disagree. Anyway, from that, we might unfold other questions, like euthanasia.
Maybe the initial brick of the edifice is to define "value".
All values are psychological, individual and subjective.
The goal of cost benefit analysis is to aggregate preferences to determine what a society should do. The values are subjective, but that is the point, to accurately measure the subjective values of individuals in society.
@@CarneadesOfCyrene
All values are subjective including the value of accurate measure of subjective values. And also, people had the right to not expressing their value.
Useless, counter intuitive and unreal philosophy is a waste of time.
Thank you for making this video, it was interesting 🤔
The value of a statistical life must be expressed in monetary units. This is so that it can be compared with other policy options that provide some other benefit besides danger prevention.
Nevermind. You could use %WTP of the other benefit for comparison.
I guess where I am getting hung up on is direct payments. WTP for $50k is $50k. %WTP for $50k is $50k/"wealth". So it would be better to give $50k to a poor person under %WTP. Assuming rich and poor have equal %WTP for death avoidance, it would be better to give poor people money to increase the lifespan of rich people. Actually that makes sense.
Exactly, for the process to work you need everything in %WTP. And yes, this method would attach a larger benefit to giving sufficiently large cash transfers to the poor than reducing mortality risk for the rich assuming that their costs are the same. But then again, as you note, it seems that there is more societal benefit gained from giving money to the poor, than extending the lives of the rich a few more years.
@@ciroguerra-lara6747 no one can dictate what someone's preferences are. What economics teaches is to allow people the freedom to pursue their preferences.
@@ciroguerra-lara6747 wasn't me.
Are individual lives ends or means? How you answer will tell you how you feel about VSL.
Both. Estimating economic value of a "statistical life" is not the same as moral value of a life, which is inestimable. The VSL is used in policy decisions which effectively weigh some lives against other lives or benefits thereof. Economically people are means to an end of societal benefits, morally they are ends in themselves.
My individual life is the means by which I achieve my ends. It's not an end, though maybe it's an instrumental goal. To be alive with no prospect of achieving anything would be a pathetic wasteland, which I wouldn't want prolonged.
I use VSL all the time as an economist, transport CBAs mostly but they feature in all kinds of projects.
I might note that while weighing the value of lives sounds distasteful, it is something that humans have always done, economists didn't invent that. In that sense, an economist saying the VSL of a life is such-and-such isn't dictating to you what the value of a life is, they are merely analysing your behaviour and then telling you what you implicitly value a life at. The VSL is a mirror, not a directive.
Therefore, if you want to value lives more, then do it. Vote for free medicare, dental, more road safety. If your behaviour changes, then so must the VSL. But all things come at a cost, saving more lives might mean less spent on education for example. And herein lies the crux of the issue. Value is not absolute, value is relative to everything else you forego. Unfortunately this opportunity cost is simply greater in poorer countries than wealthier ones. If this is evil it is not an evil of economics, it is an evil that economics is showing you so that you must do something about it.
Like u can bargaing with death and fate: lmao, *Laughs in memento mori*
And where is the environment in these calculations?!?
How much worth is the preservation of an endangered species or environment such as rain forests?
No wonder, that the threat of Global Warming is taken so lightly by “economists” these days.
Value of a statistical life is late stage capitalism. Billionaires trying to justify their exploitive existence
🙄