Mortality Risk Valuation for Environmental Policy

Alan J. Krupnick, Anna Alberini, Maureen Cropper, Nathalie Simon, Kenshi Itaoka and Makoto Akai

No 10882, Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future

Abstract: Most benefit-cost analyses of reductions in air pollutants and other pollutants carrying mortality risks rely on estimates of the value of reductions in such risks produced by compensating wage studies, or contingent valuation studies that value risk reductions in the context of transport or job-related accidents. As we argue below, these estimates are inappropriate when valuing risk changes produced by environmental programs. The objectives of this paper are to explain why these estimates are inappropriate and to describe an improved approach to valuing reductions in risk of death from environmental programs, especially programs to reduce air pollution. We have implemented this approach in a pilot study in Tokyo, Japan. The paper provides estimates of the value of a statistical life based on the pilot study and describes extensions of the approach based on test results. Our preliminary results from the Tokyo pilot indicate that individuals are able to distinguish between different magnitudes of small changes in mortality risks and between the same change in these risks occurring at different times (although the latter has not yet been subjected to an external scope test). Changes to the survey and a big increase in sample size may improve performance on the internal validity tests and the results of the scope tests. Although the current results can only be considered suggestive, if they were to remain after administration of the survey to a larger sample and subject to some other caveats, they would imply that the VSL's currently used in benefit-cost analyses of environmental policies are significant overestimates.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/10882/files/dp990047.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Mortality Risk Valuation for Environmental Policy (1999)
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:ags:rffdps:10882

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10882

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().