IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rff/dpaper/dp-00-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Age, Health, and the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: A Contingent Valuation Survey of Ontario Residents

Author

Listed:
  • Krupnick, Alan

    (Resources for the Future)

  • Cropper, Maureen
  • Alberini, Anna
  • Heintzelman, Martin
  • Simon, Nathalie
  • O'Brien, Bernie
  • Goeree, Ron

Abstract

Much of the justification for environmental rulemaking rests on estimates of the benefits to society of reduced mortality rates. This research aims to fill gaps in the literature that estimates the value of a statistical life (VSL) by designing and implementing a contingent valuation study for persons 40 to 75 years of age, and eliciting WTP for reductions in current and future risks of death. Targeting this age range also allows us to examine the impact of age on WTP and, by asking respondents to complete a detailed health questionnaire, to examine the impact of health status on WTP. This survey was self-administered by computer to 930 persons in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1999. The survey uses audio and visual aids to communicate baseline risks of death and risk changes and are tested for comprehension of probabilities before being asked WTP questions. We credit these efforts at risk communication with the fact that mean WTP of respondents faced with larger risk reductions exceeds mean WTP of respondents faced with smaller risk reductions; that is, our respondents pass the external scope test. Our mean WTP estimates for a contemporaneous risk reduction imply a VSL ranging approximately from $1.2 to $3.8 million (1999 C$), depending on the size of the risk change valued, which is at or below estimates commonly used in environmental cost-benefit analyses by the Canadian and the U.S. governments. Interestingly, we find that age has no effect on WTP until roughly age 70 and above (the VSL is about $0.6 million for this age group) and that physical health status, with the possible exception of having cancer, has no effect. We also find that being mentally healthy raises WTP substantially. In addition, compared with estimates of WTP for contemporaneous risk reductions, mean WTP estimates for risk reductions of the same magnitude but beginning at age 70 are more than 50% smaller.

Suggested Citation

  • Krupnick, Alan & Cropper, Maureen & Alberini, Anna & Heintzelman, Martin & Simon, Nathalie & O'Brien, Bernie & Goeree, Ron, 2000. "Age, Health, and the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: A Contingent Valuation Survey of Ontario Residents," RFF Working Paper Series dp-00-37, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-00-37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rff.org/RFF/documents/RFF-DP-00-37.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moore, Michael J & Viscusi, W Kip, 1988. "The Quantity-Adjusted Value of Life," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(3), pages 369-388, July.
    2. N/A, 1999. "Abstracts," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 8(2), pages 239-258, September.
    3. Alberini Anna, 1995. "Efficiency vs Bias of Willingness-to-Pay Estimates: Bivariate and Interval-Data Models," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 169-180, September.
    4. Cousineau, Jean-Michel & Lacroix, Robert & Girard, Anne-Marie, 1992. "Occupational Hazard and Wage Compensating Differentials," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(1), pages 166-169, February.
    5. Hammitt, James K & Graham, John D, 1999. "Willingness to Pay for Health Protection: Inadequate Sensitivity to Probability?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 33-62, April.
    6. Richard T. Carson & W. Michael Hanemann & Raymond J. Kopp & Jon A. Krosnick & Robert Cameron Mitchell & Stanley Presser, 1998. "Referendum Design And Contingent Valuation: The Noaa Panel'S No-Vote Recommendation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 484-487, August.
    7. Herriges, Joseph A. & Shogren, Jason F., 1996. "Starting Point Bias in Dichotomous Choice Valuation with Follow-Up Questioning," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 112-131, January.
    8. Smith, V Kerry & Desvousges, William H, 1987. "An Empirical Analysis of the Economic Value of Risk Changes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 89-114, February.
    9. Johansson, Per-Olov, 1994. "Altruism and the value of statistical life: Empirical implications," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 111-118, March.
    10. Gerking, Shelby & de Haan, Menno & Schulze, William, 1988. "The Marginal Value of Job Safety: A Contingent Valuation Study," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 185-199, June.
    11. Jones-Lee, M W & Hammerton, M & Philips, P R, 1985. "The Value of Safety: Results of a National Sample Survey," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 49-72, March.
    12. Leigh J. Paul, 1995. "Compensating Wages, Value of a Statistical Life, and Inter-industry Differentials," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 83-97, January.
    13. R.K. Prusty & S. Pal, 1999. "Abstracts," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 8(1), pages 113-134, March.
    14. Kniesner, Thomas J & Leeth, John D, 1991. "Compensating Wage Differentials for Fatal Injury Risk in Australia, Japan, and the United States," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 75-90, January.
    15. Kip Viscusi, W. & Magat, Wesley A. & Huber, Joel, 1991. "Pricing environmental health risks: survey assessments of risk-risk and risk-dollar trade-offs for chronic bronchitis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 32-51, July.
    16. Jones-Lee, M W, 1991. "Altruism and the Value of Other People's Safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 213-219, April.
    17. Bengt Kriström, 1997. "Spike Models in Contingent Valuation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(3), pages 1013-1023.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Georges Dionne & Paul Lanoie, 2002. "How to Make a Public Choice About the Value of a Statistical Life: The Case of Road Safety," Cahiers de recherche 02-04, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée.
    2. Strand.J., 2001. "Public- and private-good values of statistical lives : results from a combined choice-experiment and contingent-valuation survey," Memorandum 31/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    3. Cropper, Maureen L., 2000. "Has Economic Research Answered the Needs of Environmental Policy?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 328-350, May.
    4. Bellavance, Franois & Dionne, Georges & Lebeau, Martin, 2009. "The value of a statistical life: A meta-analysis with a mixed effects regression model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 444-464, March.
    5. Burtraw, Dallas & Bharvirkar, Ranjit & McGuinness, Meghan, 2001. "Uncertainty and the Cost-Effectiveness of Regional NOx Emissions Reductions from Electricity Generation," Discussion Papers 10846, Resources for the Future.
    6. Viscusi, W Kip & Aldy, Joseph E, 2003. "The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 5-76, August.
    7. S. Madheswaran, 2008. "Measuring the Value of Life and Limb: Estimating Compensating Wage Differentials Among Workers in Chennai and Mumbai," Working Papers id:1708, eSocialSciences.
    8. James Hammitt & Jin-Tan Liu, 2004. "Effects of Disease Type and Latency on the Value of Mortality Risk," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 73-95, January.
    9. Henrik Andersson & James Hammitt & Gunnar Lindberg & Kristian Sundström, 2013. "Willingness to Pay and Sensitivity to Time Framing: A Theoretical Analysis and an Application on Car Safety," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 56(3), pages 437-456, November.
    10. Richard T. Carson, 2011. "Contingent Valuation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2489.
    11. Sund, Björn, 2009. "Sensitivity to scope in contingent valuation – introducing a flexible community analogy to communicate mortality risk reductions," Working Papers 2009:2, Örebro University, School of Business.
    12. Svensson, Mikael & Vredin Johansson, Maria, 2007. "Willingness to Pay for Private and Public Safety: Why the Difference?," Working Papers 2007:2, Örebro University, School of Business.
    13. Andrea Leiter, 2011. "Age effects in monetary valuation of reduced mortality risks: the relevance of age-specific hazard rates," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 12(4), pages 331-344, August.
    14. Dionne, Georges & Lebeau, Martin, 2010. "Le calcul de la valeur statistique d’une vie humaine," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 86(4), pages 487-530, décembre.
    15. S. Madheswaran, 2007. "Measuring the value of statistical life: estimating compensating wage differentials among workers in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 84(1), pages 83-96, October.
    16. Andrea Baranzini & Giovanni Ferro Luzzi, 2001. "The Economic Value of Risks to Life: Evidence from the Swiss Labour Market," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 137(II), pages 149-170, June.
    17. Krupnick, Alan & Cropper, Maureen & Alberini, Anna & Simon, Nathalie & Itaoka, Kenshi & Akai, Makoto, 1999. "Mortality Risk Valuation for Environmental Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-99-47, Resources for the Future.
    18. Vredin Johansson, Maria & Heldt, Tobias & Johansson, Per, 2006. "The effects of attitudes and personality traits on mode choice," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 507-525, July.
    19. Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte & Kjær, Trine & Nielsen, Jytte Seested, 2016. "The value of mortality risk reductions. Pure altruism - a confounder?," DaCHE discussion papers 2016:5, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    20. Alberini, Anna & Ščasný, Milan, 2018. "The benefits of avoiding cancer (or dying from cancer): Evidence from a four- country study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 249-262.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • L5 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-00-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Resources for the Future (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rffffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.