Estimates of The Value of Life
In the US, the following estimates have been applied to the value of life. The estimates are either for one year of additional life or for the statistical value of a single life.
- $50 000 per year of quality life (international standard most private and government-run health insurance plans worldwide use to determine whether to cover a new medical procedure)
- $129 000 per year of quality life (based on analysis of kidney dialysis procedures by Stefanos Zenios and colleagues at Stanford Graduate School of Business)
- $6.9 million (Environmental Protection Agency)
- $7.9 million (Food and Drug Administration)
- $6 million (Transportation Department)
- $7 million (median value for prime aged workers)
The income elasticity of the value of statistical life has been estimated at 0.5 to 0.6. Developing markets have smaller statistical value of life. The statistical value of life also decreases with age.
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Famous quotes containing the words estimates and/or life:
“And, by the way, who estimates the value of the crop which nature yields in the still wilder fields unimproved by man? The crop of English hay is carefully weighed, the moisture calculated, the silicates and the potash; but in all dells and pond-holes in the woods and pastures and swamps grows a rich and various crop only unreaped by man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When he who adores thee has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind,
O! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign’d!”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)