Talk:Value of life/Archives/2021

Policy applications at 5 or 10 percent?

On 2021-05-29 the section on #Policy applications of the VSL said, "For example, the valuation estimates used for mortality were ... discounted with a 5 percent discount rate", and cited W. Kip Viscusi (1995). Fatal Tradeoffs: Public & private responsibilities for risk. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-510293-2. OL 7387815M. Wikidata Q107024073..

PROBLEMS:

I do not find a 5 percent discount rate mentioned in the book cited. Instead on p. 163, I found the following:

• Viscusi and Moore (1989) estimated "discount rates in the vicinity of 11 percent" implied by workers behaviors towards risks on the job, "but the standard errors on these estimates are sufficient to include other market reference points, such as prevailing mortgage interest rates."
• The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (1988) "has long specified a 10 percent rate of discount ... an approach that will drastically reduce the attractiveness of policies such as those that reduce cancer risks or have long-term implications for our ecological well-being."

However, Jim DeMocker; Al McGartland; Tom Gillis (October 1997), Robert D. Brenner; Richard D. Morgenstern (eds.), The Benefits and Costs of the Clean Air Act, 1970-1990 (PDF), United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wikidata Q107024778, cited after the next sentence, recommends a discount rate of 5 percent but compares it with 3 and 7 percent.

By contrast, the Wikipedia article on Disability-adjusted life year (DALY) cites Colin Mathers; Gretchen Stevens (November 2013), WHO methods and data sources for global burden of disease estimates 2000-2011 (PDF), World Health Organization, Wikidata Q107023735, which says that prior to 2010 the World Health Organization (WHO) use 3 percent discounting but stopped discounting in 2010, because even at 3 percent almost anything could happen to seniors without a substantive impact on DALY, and that seemed ethically unreasonable.

Another minor problem is that the current text refers to a "figure 1", which is NOT in this article but is presumably in a reference cited. That seems like a problem to me.

CONCLUSION: I don't feel that I understand enough of the subtleties involved with using "Value of life" to feel comfortable modifying this article right now, and I don't know if I can create the time to try to fix this. I hope that someone else who knows this subject much better than I do will try to fix these problem.

DavidMCEddy (talk) 15:04, 30 May 2021 (UTC)