On the value of time and human life

François Gardes ()
Additional contact information
François Gardes: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, EGEI - Éthique et Gouvernance de l’Entreprise et des Institutions - UCO - Université Catholique de l'Ouest

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: The opportunity cost of time is estimated using a model based on domestic production (depending on monetary and time expenditures) and direct utility (depending on produced commodities). These factors of domestic production are measured by the matching of a Family Budget survey with a Time Use survey. The new model is estimated on Canadian, French, Polish, US and Burkina-Faso statistics. It allows the economic value of human life to be estimated, based on the integration of the marginal value of each instant during an individual's life cycle. This value is shown to give a different pattern across countries compared to their per capita GDP. Finally, the opportunity cost of time is shown to vary between commodities according to the possibility of substituting money and time in domestic production. It also increases between countries relatively to the average wage rate, according to the degree of liberalization of the labor markets.

Keywords: opportunity cost of time; value of human life; elasticity of substitution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-isf and nep-upt
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03325332v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in 2021

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03325332v1/document (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:hal:journl:halshs-03325332

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().