There is increasing interest in the effects of transport policy on health, raising the questions of 'how much is it worth spending to reduce the loss of life' and 'what is the value of a life'. This paper describes research aimed at valuing life. An early study estimated the value of a life by calculating a person's total production over their lifetime minus their total consumption. This showed that the only genuinely productive lives were those of young and middle-aged employed men. Later research showed that it was not necessary to subtract the total consumption after all. More recently, the basis for the figure changed from using economic theory (value of production) to a market valuation. This valued life at over #1m and justified more expenditure on improving safety. Work on health economics has been influenced by the concepts of triage and harvesting. Safety economics and health economics generally apply different approaches to valuing life. Health economics generally talks about 'life years lost' and safety economics talks of 'lives lost'.
Abstract