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| Social Cost-Benefit Analysis× | Value of Statistical Life× | |
|---|---|---|
| Field | Economics | Economics |
| Family | Process / pipeline | Process / pipeline |
| Year of origin≠ | 1974 | 2003 |
| Originator≠ | Ian Little & James Mirrlees; Partha Dasgupta, Amartya Sen & Stephen Marglin (UNIDO) | Thomas Schelling; W. Kip Viscusi (empirical synthesis) |
| Type≠ | Welfare-based project appraisal using shadow prices | Nonmarket valuation of mortality-risk reductions |
| Seminal source≠ | Little, I. M. D., & Mirrlees, J. A. (1974). Project Appraisal and Planning for Developing Countries. Heinemann Educational / Basic Books. ISBN: 9780435845001 | Viscusi, W. K., & Aldy, J. E. (2003). The value of a statistical life: a critical review of market estimates throughout the world. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 27(1), 5–76. DOI ↗ |
| Aliases | SCBA, Economic Appraisal, Shadow-Price Cost-Benefit Analysis, Social Appraisal of Investment Projects | VSL, Value of Statistical Life, Value per Statistical Life, Statistical Value of Life |
| Related | 3 | 3 |
| Summary≠ | Social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) appraises public investment projects from the standpoint of society as a whole rather than a private investor. It values inputs and outputs at shadow prices that reflect their true opportunity cost to the economy — correcting market prices for taxes, subsidies, trade distortions, and unemployment — applies distributional weights to gains accruing to different income groups, and discounts the resulting stream of social net benefits at a social discount rate to obtain a net present social value. The modern framework was systematized by Little and Mirrlees and, in parallel, in the UNIDO guidelines of Dasgupta, Sen, and Marglin. | The value of a statistical life (VSL) is the marginal rate of substitution between income and the probability of death — how much a population is collectively willing to pay for a small reduction in mortality risk, expressed per expected life saved. It is not the value of any identified person's life but the aggregate willingness to trade money for tiny risk changes: if 100,000 people each pay $100 to reduce their annual fatality risk by one in 100,000, society spends $10 million to prevent one statistical death, implying a VSL of $10 million. VSL is the central input to benefit-cost analysis of health, safety, and environmental regulations, and is estimated from labor-market wage-risk data (revealed preference) or from surveys (stated preference). |
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