Valuing pain using the subjective well-being method

Thorhildur Ólafsdóttir, Tinna Laufey Ásgeirsdóttir and Edward Norton

Economics & Human Biology, 2020, vol. 37, issue C

Abstract: Chronic pain clearly lowers utility, but valuing the reduction in utility is empirically challenging. Here, we use improvements over prior applications of the subjective well-being method to estimate the implied trade-off between pain and income using four waves of the Health and Retirement Study (2008-2014), a nationally representative survey on individuals age 50 and older. We model income with a flexible functional form, allowing the trade-off between pain and income to vary across income groups. We control for individual fixed effects in the life-satisfaction equations and instrument for income in some models. We find values for avoiding pain ranging between 56–145 USD per day. These results are lower than previously reported and suggest that the higher previous estimates may be heavily affected by the highest income level and confounded by endogeneity in the income variable. As expected, we find that the value of pain relief increases with pain severity.

Keywords: Pain; Value; Willingness-To-Pay; Subjective well-being method; Compensating variation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D60 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Working Paper: Valuing Pain using the Subjective Well-being Method (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:37:y:2020:i:c:s1570677x19300656

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2019.100827

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