Measuring the societal value of lifetime health

Aki Tsuchiya (), Richard Edlin and Paul Dolan

No 2009010, Working Papers from The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper considers two societal concerns in addition to health maximisation: first, concerns for the societal value of lifetime health for an individual; and second, concerns for the value of lifetime health across individuals. Health-related social welfare functions (HRSWFs) have addressed only the second concern. We propose a model that expresses the former in a metric – the adult healthy-year equivalent (AHYE) – that can be incorporated into standard HRSWFs. An empirical study based on this formulation shows that both factors matter: health losses in childhood are weighted more heavily than losses in adulthood and respondents wish to reduce inequalities in AHYEs.

Keywords: Health; Social welfare function; monotonicity; Equity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2009-05, Revised 2009-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shf:wpaper:2009010

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