The Cost of Life Expectancy and the Implicit Social Valuation of Life
Steve Dowrick,
Yvonne Dunlop and
John Quiggin
Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 1998, vol. 100, issue 4, 673-691
Abstract:
A new method of estimating the economic value of life is proposed. Using cross‐country data, an equation is estimated to explain life expectancy as a function of real consumption of goods and services. The associated cost function for life expectancy in terms of the prices of specific goods and services is used to estimate the cost of a reduction in age‐specific mortality rates sufficient to save the life of one person. The cost of saving a life in OECD countries is as much as 1000 times that in the poorest countries. Ethical implications are discussed.
Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9442.00130
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:bla:scandj:v:100:y:1998:i:4:p:673-691
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0347-0520
Access Statistics for this article
Scandinavian Journal of Economics is currently edited by Richard Friberg, Matti Liski and Kjetil Storesletten
More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().