Estimates of the Value of Life Using Air Bag Regulations as a Quasi-Experiment

描述（由申请人提供）：许多公共政策的目的是延长人们的生命，减少死亡的风险。为了在这些不同的政策之间有效地分配政府支出，有必要从成本效益的角度对这些政策进行评估。进行这种成本效益计算需要对救生技术的经济价值进行估计（以美元为单位）。这些估计，也被称为统计寿命值（VSL），广泛用于医疗保健，以确定是否特定的医疗或卫生政策， 是符合成本效益的。为了使这些成本效益计算正确，VSL估计必须准确。以前对VSL的估计是基于这样一种观察，即死亡风险较高的工作往往报酬较高。这种经验规律性被解释为，工人支付工资溢价，以诱导他们接受有风险的工作，这种溢价已被用来估计的VSL。然而，最近出现了相当大的争论，真正的VSL是什么，这种方法是否产生准确的估计。这些研究可能无法有效地控制混杂因素，如员工特定的属性，如动机和能力或工作特定的属性，如舒适性和自主性。此外，这些方法估计了“边际”工人的VSL-在目前的工资水平下，他们在从事危险工作和安全工作之间没有区别。对这一边缘工人的VSL的估计不一定能提供关于降低风险对普通美国人的好处的信息。为了解决这些问题，本项目将使用政府关于安全气囊的政策作为“准实验”来估计VSL。“通过政府在20世纪90年代强制逐步采用安全气囊，在几年内，装有安全气囊的车辆比例从不到40%增加到100%。当汽车模型中增加安全气囊时，价格的上涨可以用来估计人群中不同个体的风险降低价值。在该政策实施的最初几年，一个安全气囊的价格反映了一个VSL高于平均水平的美国人降低风险的价值。随着安全气囊变得越来越普遍，价格下降，新的价格反映了VSL低于平均水平的个人风险降低的价值。利用不同车型分阶段采用时间表的差异，可以将政策的影响与经济增长和公众对技术接受程度的提高等经济因素分开。 现有VSL估计的一个重要局限性是，它们是基于年轻人的行为，而医疗支出的主要受益者是老年人。这里使用的方法的一个优点是，汽车购买是由许多不同年龄的个人进行的。 因此，有可能使用这些数据来衡量不同年龄组的VSL如何变化。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究旨在获得比目前更准确的估计，以提高预期寿命或减少死亡风险的政策的社会效益。经济学家对这些政策的社会效益的估计被NIH、EPA和其他政府机构广泛用于对挽救生命的支出（如医疗、医学研究和环境法规）进行成本效益分析。通过提高这些效益估算的准确性，本研究将有助于提高政府在这些领域决策的准确性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Many public policies are designed to extend people's lives and to reduce the risk of death. To allocate government expenditures across these different policies effectively, it is necessary to evaluate the policies from a cost-benefit perspective. Making such cost-benefit calculations requires estimates (in dollar units) of the economic value of life-saving technologies. These estimates, also referred to as the value of a statistical life (VSL), are used extensively in health care to determine whether specific medical treatments or health polices are cost-effective. For these cost-effectiveness calculations to be correct, it is necessary for the VSL estimates to be accurate. Previous estimates of the VSL are based on the observation that jobs with higher levels of fatality risk tend to pay more. This empirical regularity has been interpreted to indicate that workers are paid a wage premium to induce them to accept risky jobs; this premium has been used to estimate the VSL. Recently, however, considerable debate has arisen as to what the true VSL is and whether this approach produces accurate estimates. These studies may not effectively control for confounding factors such as worker-specific attributes such as motivation and ability or job-specific attributes such as comfort and autonomy. Moreover, these approaches estimate the VSL for a "marginal" worker - one who, at the current wage rates, is indifferent between working in a risky job and a safe job. Estimates of this marginal worker's VSL are not necessarily informative about the benefits of risk reductions for the average American. To address these problems, this project will estimate the VSL using government policies regarding air bags as a "quasi-experiment." Through the government-mandated phase-in of air bags over the 1990s, the fraction of vehicles with air bags increased from less than 40% to 100% over a few years. The jump in prices that occurs when an air bag was added to an automobile model can be used to estimate the valuations of risk reductions for different individuals in the population. In the early years of the policy, the price of an air bag reflected the valuation of risk reductions for an American whose VSL was higher than average. As air bags became more common, the price decreased, and the new price reflected the valuation of risk reductions for an individual whose VSL was lower than average. Using differences in the phase-in schedule across vehicle types, it is possible to disentangle the effects of the policy from economy-wide factors such as economic growth and increases in public acceptance of the technology. One important limitation of existing VSL estimates is that they are based on the behavior of younger individuals, while the primary beneficiaries of medical expenditures are the elderly. One advantage of the approach used here is that automobile purchases are made by individuals at many different ages. Consequently, it is possible to use these data to measure how the VSL varies across age groups. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed study aims to obtain more accurate estimates than currently exist of the social benefits of policies that increase life expectancy or reduce fatality risk. Economists' estimates of the social benefits of such policies are used extensively by the NIH, the EPA, and other government agencies to conduct cost benefit analyses of life-saving expenditures such as medical treatments, medical research, and environmental regulations. By improving the accuracy of these benefit estimates, this study will contribute toward improving the accuracy of government decision-making in these areas.