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Taking “All Men Are Created Equal” Seriously: Toward a Metric for the Intergroup Comparison of Utility Functions Through Life Values

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

David Courard-Hauri  and
Stephen A. Lauer
David Courard-Hauri
Affiliation:
Drake University
Stephen A. Lauer
Affiliation:
Iowa State University
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Abstract

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The use of wage differential techniques to estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL) leads to the conclusion that willingness to pay for risk reduction increases with income. However, the use of this result in policy-relevant calculations, such as benefit-cost analysis, has led to criticism among ethicists and the lay public, at the same time as it has been defended in the economic literature. In this paper, we argue that differential valuation measures not a differential value that individuals place upon their own lives, but a differential value that they place upon marginal economic resources. Using two sets of VSL estimates from metastudies, we provide an initial estimate of the relative marginal value of income, allowing interpersonal comparison at the societal level. With these results, we propose an empirically determined, ethically justifiable social welfare function that can be easily incorporated into benefit-cost analysis and that has important implications for development economics, although more work is necessary to provide a robust estimate.

Keywords

value of a statistical lifesocial welfare functioninterpersonal comparisonmarginal value of income
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , 23 August 2012 , pp. 1 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis 2012

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