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The Value of a Statistical Life in Sweden Estimates from Two Studies using the "Cerainty Approach" Calibration

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Author Info
Svensson, Mikael () (Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics)

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Abstract

Stated preference methods using surveys to elicit willingness to pay have been shown to suffer of hypothetical bias. Individuals usually overestimate their willingness to pay in hypothetical scenarios compared to real-life. Experimental results in social psychology, and recently in applied economics, have shown that only trusting the most certain respondents can potentially solve the problem with hypothetical bias. In this paper I present results from two different surveys in Sweden estimating the willingness to pay to reduce traffic mortality risks by only including the most certain respondents. Using the full sample, estimates of VOSL are $4.2 and $7.3 million, while when estimating VOSL on the subset of the samples only including the most certain respondents, VOSL are $2.9 and $3.1 million. Even these lower bound values are higher compared to the current official Swedish VOSL for road investments, which is $2.5 million, indicating that a policy conclusion is to raise this official estimate.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Örebro University, Swedish Business School in its series Working Papers with number 2006:6.

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Length: 22 pages
Date of creation: 27 Sep 2006
Date of revision: 25 Jul 2007
Handle: RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2006_006

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Postal: Örebro University, Swedish Business School, SE - 701 82 ÖREBRO, Sweden
Phone: 019-30 30 00
Fax: 019-33 25 46
Web page: http://www.oru.se/templates/oruExtDeptIntroPage.aspx?id=3059
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Related research
Keywords: Value of a Statistical Life Contingent Valuation Hypothetical Bias Calibration Certainty Approach

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D80 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - General
I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Svensson, Mikael, 2007. "Precautionary Behavior and Willingness to Pay for a Mortality Risk Reduction:Searching for the Expected Relationship," Working Papers 2007:3, Örebro University, Swedish Business School, revised 18 Feb 2008.
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