I’m a bit surprised though. Value-to-the-economy may not be a very good proxy for the value of a human life, but at least it’s a coherent one, whereas I would be fairly shocked if the amount people in general were willing to pay to mitigate risks to their life turned out to be coherent on a basis of money per amount risk.
To take one of the metrics from the linked page
Another method economists can use to estimate the VSL is by simply asking people ( perhaps through questionnaires) how much they would be willing to pay for a reduction in the likelihood of dying, perhaps by purchasing safety improvements.
I’d be willing to bet good money that if you performed such a survey, and another survey in which you posited a certain number of deaths per year due to terrorism, and asked how much money tax ought to go to fighting terrorism, that the extrapolated value that they assign to mitigating terrorist risk would be inconsistent with their stated value of home safety.
Certainly people’s “revealed preferences” do not appear to indicate that they’re consistent according to such a metric.
Thanks for the correction.
I’m a bit surprised though. Value-to-the-economy may not be a very good proxy for the value of a human life, but at least it’s a coherent one, whereas I would be fairly shocked if the amount people in general were willing to pay to mitigate risks to their life turned out to be coherent on a basis of money per amount risk.
To take one of the metrics from the linked page
I’d be willing to bet good money that if you performed such a survey, and another survey in which you posited a certain number of deaths per year due to terrorism, and asked how much money tax ought to go to fighting terrorism, that the extrapolated value that they assign to mitigating terrorist risk would be inconsistent with their stated value of home safety.
Certainly people’s “revealed preferences” do not appear to indicate that they’re consistent according to such a metric.