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The Welfare Cost of Homicides in Brazil: Accounting for Heterogeneity in the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Reductions

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  • Daniel Cerqueira
  • Rodrigo R. Soares

Abstract

This paper estimates the health dimension of the welfare cost of homicides in Brazil incorporating age, gender, educational, and regional heterogeneities. We use a marginal willingness to pay approach to assign monetary values to the welfare cost of increased mortality due to violence. Results indicate that the present discounted value of the welfare cost of homicides in Brazil corresponds to roughly 78% of the GDP or, in terms of yearly flow, 2.3%. The analysis also shows that reliance on aggregate data to perform such calculations can lead to biases of around 20% in the estimated social cost of violence. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Cerqueira & Rodrigo R. Soares, 2016. "The Welfare Cost of Homicides in Brazil: Accounting for Heterogeneity in the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Reductions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(3), pages 259-276, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:3:p:259-276
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3137
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    Cited by:

    1. Shaun Da Costa, 2019. "The Impact of the Ebola Crisis on Mortality and Welfare in Liberia," Working Papers 1911, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    2. Carvalho, Leandro S. & Soares, Rodrigo R., 2016. "Living on the edge: Youth entry, career and exit in drug-selling gangs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 77-98.
    3. Shaun M. Da Costa, 2020. "The impact of the Ebola crisis on mortality and welfare in Liberia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(12), pages 1517-1532, December.
    4. Popova, Olga & Otrachshenko, Vladimir & Tavares, José, 2019. "Extreme Temperature and Extreme Violence across Age and Gender: Evidence from Russia," GLO Discussion Paper Series 382, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Heidi Kaila & Abul Azad, 2019. "Conflict, Household Victimization, and Welfare: Does the Perpetrator Matter?," HiCN Working Papers 315, Households in Conflict Network.

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