Are some lives more valuable? An ethical preferences approach

Olof Johansson-Stenman () and Peter Martinsson

Journal of Health Economics, 2008, vol. 27, issue 3, 739-752

Abstract: We develop a theoretical model of the ethical preferences of individuals, combining individual social welfare functions and random utility theory. The model is applied by conducting a choice experiment regarding safety-enhancing road investments that target different age groups and road user types. The relative value of a saved life is found to decrease with age, such that the present value of a saved life-year is almost independent of age at a pure rate of time preference of a few percent. Moreover, a saved pedestrian is consistently valued higher than a saved car driver of the same age.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6296(07)00098-7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jhecon:v:27:y:2008:i:3:p:739-752

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire

More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().