Valuing Life as an Asset, as a Statistic and at Gunpoint

Julien Hugonnier, Florian Pelgrin and Pascal St-Amour

The Economic Journal, 2022, vol. 132, issue 643, 1095-1122

Abstract: Rationalising the stark differences between the human capital and the statistical values of a human life is complicated by the absence of common foundations. We solve a human capital investment model with longevity risk to characterise the human capital. The associated indirect utility yields the willingness to pay against mortality; the marginal willingness to pay solves the value of a statistical life. Indifference between life and certain death characterises the limiting willingness to pay and provides a gunpoint value. A structural estimation reveals similar human capital (300,000) and gunpoint value (251,000) and explains a much larger statistical value (4.98 million) by a strongly concave willingness to pay.

Date: 2022
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Related works:
Working Paper: Valuing Life as an Asset, as a Statistic and at Gunpoint (2018)
Working Paper: Valuing Life as an Asset, as a Statistic and at Gunpoint (2018)
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