How Do You Calculate Human Life Value?
• Decide whose lives you want to put a value on. The value of life is not a constant across all individuals. An estimate derived from Canadian labor markets should not be used to infer a value of life in Japan. • Decide on a methodology. Generally this will involve finding some sort of risk that people will pay to prevent or accept money to subject themselves to. Almost any risk can be used although the value of life may not be a constant. That is, you might find that people are willing to pay more to protect themselves against dying from cancer than from drowning. There are at least three general approaches here. • Individual survey: This requires calling up random people and presenting them with a hypothetical risk-money scenario. For example, “Suppose your doctor tells you about an early test for colon cancer. The test is safe and painless, and detects cancers when they are 90% curable. Other tests can’t detect the cancer until it is 70% curable. The test costs $2000 and is not cove
