Death, Happiness, and the Calculation of Compensatory Damages

Andrew J. Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee ()

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the mental distress caused by bereavement. The largest emotional losses are from the death of a spouse; the second-worst in severity are the losses from the death of a child; the third-worst is the death of a parent. The paper explores how happiness regression equations might be used in tort cases to calculate compensatory damages for emotional harm and pain-and-suffering. We examine alternative well-being variables, discuss adaptation, consider the possibility that bereavement affects someone’s marginal utility of income, and suggest a procedure for correcting for the endogeneity of income. Although the paper’s contribution is methodological, and further research is needed, some illustrative compensation amounts are discussed

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hea and nep-ltv
Date: 2007
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear ... ations/twerp_827.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Death, Happiness, and the Calculation of Compensatory Damages (2007)
Journal Article: Death, Happiness, and the Calculation of Compensatory Damages (2008)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:827

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Margaret Nash ().