tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post6768277570183495468..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Back in the News: The Embarrassment Known as the Value of a Statistical LifeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-3494815053179081962011-02-21T13:10:10.926-05:002011-02-21T13:10:10.926-05:00pe:
I suppose the place to start would be Markets...pe:<br /><br />I suppose the place to start would be <i>Markets and Mortality</i>, which I wrote 15 years ago and which recently came out in a paperback edition. (I was not informed of the new edition by Cambridge U Press and had no opportunity to update the book.) My thinking, and the accumulation of critical research from other sources, would lead to a different set of arguments today, however.<br /><br />Kien:<br /><br />This is a great question. I faced this myself several years ago when I needed to put a monetary value on the health costs of hazardous child labor for the ILO (International Labor Organization). There is a lot to say about this, more than I can get into here, but the bottom line for me was to put out an estimate that incorporated only potential financial flows or direct equivalents (wages and in-kind receipts, taxes) and not monetized subjective states (suffering from ill-health, psychic loss from the death of loved ones). The intermediate metric was the WHO's DALY (disability-adjusted life-year). There were great difficulties in going from exposures (numbers and types of hazardous jobs) to DALY's, and from DALY's to potential economic outcomes. All the same, it is better to do the right thing inexactly than the wrong thing perfectly. The ethical and psychological harm of hazardous child labor was not monetized. For details, see the appendix on health cost calculation in the report <i>Investing in Every Child</i>, published by the ILO.Peter Dormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00093399591393648071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-70122906007675615452011-02-21T07:35:00.443-05:002011-02-21T07:35:00.443-05:00Peter Dorman: "..Being able to put everything...Peter Dorman: "<i>..Being able to put everything, including life and health, in monetary terms...</i><br /><br />This feels very familiar. I've spent the last 14 years highlighting the absurdity of the pseudo-science of 'risk management' and 'risk assessment' with respect to industrial pesticides. <br /><br />It seems that most 'science' today is funded for the specific purpose of permitting the unacceptable.<br /><br />A old posting of mine on the subject:<br />http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/weblog/comments/george-river-pesticide-spray/<br /><br />George River pesticide spray<br /><br /><br />It has been clear since July 2006 that the bureaucrats in Tasmania, and federally, had no intention of moving away from the extremely dangerous 'business-as-usual' catastrophe.<br /><br />In fact, the situation has worsened now that the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicine (APVMA) raised the legally 'acceptable' height of the aerial spraying helicopter from 3 metres to 15 metres above the ground to accommodate the 'forest' industry. <br /><br />"A helicopter a 'mere' 15 metres above the ground means that the most voluminous fine droplet drift of these dangerous pesticides will fall 5 to 10 times that distance away. 75 to 150 metres by my calculation. This is both well within and on the OTHER side of the 'exclusion zone' ..recommended by the ASCHEM in Tasmania!<br /><br />That is, houses and water bodies within 150 metres of the aircraft will often receive more chemical exposure than the target crop. This in almost ideal aerial spray conditions! " (flat land, level aircraft, appropriate nozzle etc).<br /><br />Katabatic winds and tilted aircraft associated with hilly terrain will ensure the distance of maximum chemical drop will vary and UNAVOIDABLY travel much further than this in Tasmania's typical geography.Myrtle Blackwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07427043367624101075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-69240070738569736302011-02-20T20:19:16.801-05:002011-02-20T20:19:16.801-05:00Hi, Peter. I recently came across the term Value ...Hi, Peter. I recently came across the term Value of Statistical Life in a 2010 paper by Arrow, Dasgupta, Gouder, Mumford and Oleson on "Sustainability and the Measurement of Wealth". Thanks to your post, I now realise that VSL has many problems. That said, in the context of trying to measure "health capital", do we have any alternatives to VSL? Incidentally, Arrow et al report that health capital is more than twice as large as all other forms of capital combined (including reproducible capital and natural capital). Measuring health capital more accurately seems an important project. Would it be right to claim that VSL-based measurements represent the lower bound? Or are you inclined to just take the view that an additional year of life is "priceless" and simply cannot be traded with other forms of wealth?Kienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15643929814291369340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-12782544459776432122011-02-19T03:57:16.590-05:002011-02-19T03:57:16.590-05:00Peter, I would be grateful if one day, you could f...Peter, I would be grateful if one day, you could find time to expand on the comments you have made in a way that simple enough for a non specialist to understand. pepehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06848542317696468694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-86338426742903781112011-02-17T21:16:55.431-05:002011-02-17T21:16:55.431-05:00Hmmm... physics and weapons research? medicine and...Hmmm... physics and weapons research? medicine and pharma... etc. <br /><br />Nobody's pure.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-36926982644982389402011-02-17T17:27:41.944-05:002011-02-17T17:27:41.944-05:00Sman,
I'm under the impression that other fie...Sman,<br /><br />I'm under the impression that other fields, especially the hard sciences, are not like this. Am I wrong?<br /><br />Brenda,<br /><br />Professionals in occupational health and safety (the slice of reality these value-of-life numbers are said to come from) ignore people like Viscusi. Regulators, however, seem desperate for these pseudo-scientific inputs. My sense is that they are permanently on the defensive, constantly going up against business interests. They want to be able to say that they are "forced" by "the science" to issue any regulations at all. Being able to put everything, including life and health, in monetary terms is part of being able to make this claim.Peter Dormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00093399591393648071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-62387588635192627132011-02-17T16:47:17.461-05:002011-02-17T16:47:17.461-05:00Or to put the matter in sharper relief:
Given a ...Or to put the matter in sharper relief: <br /><br />Given a choice between accommodation to a profession that insulates error from hard criticism or disbanding the profession BECAUSE it insulates error from hard criticism, which would the "good economist" choose?Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-23964295192089854902011-02-17T12:40:20.546-05:002011-02-17T12:40:20.546-05:00Peter: In the end, the problem is that economics i...Peter: <i>In the end, the problem is that economics is too often able to insulate itself from hard criticism: there is seldom a career cost to being shown to be in error. The questions on the table are why and what to do about it.</i><br /><br />Your assumption here, Peter, is that a <i>career</i> in economics is itself obvious and unexceptional.<br /><br />The opposite is the case. It is the very professionalization of economics that insulates error from hard criticism or consequences -- provided the error in question is a <a href="http://ecologicalheadstand.blogspot.com/2011/02/puffery-most-salutory-error.html" rel="nofollow">most salutary</a> one (from the perspective of the profession and its benefactors). <br /><br />The problem is in the nature of a priesthood, not in the particular transgressions of this or that group of priests. As an outsider with a critique, I have experienced this viscerally in interactions with progressive economists who profess their allegiance with the <i>ideal</i> of greater leisure but bristle at my subversive interpretation of the history of economic thought.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-502641194162156822011-02-17T07:56:40.509-05:002011-02-17T07:56:40.509-05:00As you say, Peter, individuals are financially rew...As you say, Peter, individuals are financially rewarded for presenting (or deriving) economic theories that are "insulated from hard criticism". If those men and women don't suffer (careerwise) for failure then we should ask what is the real function of these people?<br /><br />They are defending the existing political and economic structure.<br /><br />The solution appears to depend upon the willingness of people outside of the economics profession to begin to 'own' and develop this field of inquiry for the direct benefit of themselves and their communities.Myrtle Blackwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07427043367624101075noreply@blogger.com