Harvard School of Public Health

The value of mortality risk reduction is an important component of the benefits of environmental policies. In recent years, the number, scope, and quality of valuation studies have increased dramatically. Revealed-preference studies of wage compensation for occupational risks, on which analysts have primarily relied, have benefited from improved data and statistical methods. Stated-preference research has improved methodologically and expanded dramatically. Studies are now available for several health conditions associated with environmental causes and researchers have explored many issues concerning the validity of the estimates. With the growing numbers of both types of studies, several meta-analyses have become available that provide insight into the results of both methods. Challenges remain, including better understanding of the persistently smaller estimates from stated-preference than from wage-differential studies and of how valuation depends on the individual's age, health status, and characteristics of the illnesses most frequently associated with environmental causes.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The African Refiners Association and the World Bank are working with other organizations and the governments of Sub-Saharan Africa to study the costs and benefits of reducing pollutant emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel. To support this ...

The Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Committee to Evaluate Measures of Health Benefits for Environmental, Health, and Safety Regulation commissioned three case studies as part of its investigations related to the use of cost-effectiveness analysis to assess the impacts of economically significant federal health and safety regulations. These case studies allowed the Committee to explore the application of alternative approaches to estimating health-related quality of life (HRQL) impacts in the regulatory context, and were one of many inputs into its deliberations. This report provides a detailed account of the Committee's first case study, which addresses the National Highway Safety Administration's (NHTSA's) 1999 regulation requiring anchoring systems for child restraints. We selected this regulation as one of the Committee's case studies so that we could explore issues related to valuing effects on children as well as alternative approaches for assessing the ...

The case studies were undertaken as a learning experience, to provide the Committee with information on the challenges associated with applying different health-related effectiveness measures in a regulatory context. Due to time and budget limitations, they do not replicate the full complexity and level of detail required for regulatory analysis under current governmentwide guidance or under the Committee's final recommendations. The case studies relied extensively on the voluntary efforts of many individuals.

The case studies were undertaken as a learning experience, to provide the Committee with information on the challenges associated with applying different health-related effectiveness measures in a regulatory context. Due to time and budget limitations, they do not replicate the full complexity and level of detail required for regulatory analysis under current governmentwide guidance or under the Committee's final recommendations. The case studies relied extensively on the voluntary efforts of many individuals.

The Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Division series publishes reviews and analyses of sector experience from around the world as well as new findings from analytical work. It places particular emphasis on how the experience and knowledge gained relates to developing country policy makers, communities affected by extractive industries, extractive industry enterprises, and civil society

Under Executive Order 12,866, 1 as supplemented by Executive Order 13,563, 2 federal agencies are required to prospectively assess the costs and benefits of significant regulations, and also to assess the costs and benefits of alternatives if the annual impacts of the regulations are expected to be equal to or greater than $100 million. 3 These analytic requirements can be traced back to the Ford administration, which used cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to determine whether major regulations would have inflationary impacts. 4 More generally, the roots of such analyses can be traced back to the 1800s, when economists began developing the foundations of welfare economics that underlie the practice of CBA today. In recent years, some psychologists and economists have become increasingly interested in how individuals rate their own happiness or life satisfaction-often referred to as subjective well-being. In their provocative article, John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, and Jonathan Masur criticize the conduct of CBA, focusing on the approaches used to value outcomes such as increased prices, unemployment, and reduced mortality risks. 5 They argue that well

Researchers and policymakers have long been interested in developing simple decision rules to aid in determining whether an intervention is, or is not, cost-effective. In global health, interventions that impose costs per disability-adjusted life year averted less than three and one times gross domestic product per capita are often considered cost-effective and very cost-effective, respectively. This article explores the conceptual foundation and derivation of these thresholds. Its goal is to promote understanding of how these thresholds were derived and their implications, as well as to suggest options for improvement. These thresholds are intended to reflect the monetary value of the benefits to affected individuals, based on their preferences for spending on health vs spending on other goods and services. However, the current values were not rigorously derived, which means that their application may lead to inappropriate conclusions regarding which interventions should be adopted...

In "Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation," The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH) adds the value of increased life expectancy to the value of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) when assessing national well-being. To value changes in life expectancy, the CIH relies on several strong assumptions to bridge gaps in the empirical research. It finds that the value of a life year (VLY) averages 2.3 times GDP per capita for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) assuming the changes in life expectancy they experienced from 2000 to 2011 are permanent. The CIH VLY estimate is based on a specific shift in population life expectancy and includes a 50 percent reduction for children ages 0 through 4. We investigate the sensitivity of this estimate to the underlying assumptions, including the effects of income, age, and life expectancy, and the sequencing of the calculations. We find that reasonable alternative assumptions regarding the effects of ...

The value of small changes in mortality risks, generally expressed as the value per statistical life, is an important parameter in benefit-cost analysis. However, little is known about the values held by populations in low- and middle-income countries. This article introduces a symposium that includes three additional articles which explore related theory and research.

Behavioral economics and happiness research have many important implications for the conduct of benefit-cost analysis as well as for policy design and implementation. By identifying ways in which we may act irrationally and providing new perspectives on the relationship between our circumstances and our sense of well-being, this research raises numerous questions regarding the evaluation of individual and societal welfare and the desirability of alternative policies. In this special issue, we present a series of articles that explore these concerns and provide significant new insights.