We use data from a survey of residents of five Italian cities conducted in late Spring 2004 to estimate the discount rates implicit in (a) money v. future risk reductions and (b) money v. money tradeoffs. We find that the mean personal discount rate is 2% in (a) and 8.7% in (b). The latter is...

Based on the aggregation of individual willingness-to-pay for a statistical life, we calibrate an intertemporal optimization model to determine the aggregate welfare losses from HIV/AIDS in 25 Eastern European countries. Assuming a discount rate of three percent, we find a total welfare loss for...

The author studies three aspects of human live valuation and its relation with cost benefit analysis and regulation. More precisely the author addresses the problem of valuation of a statistical human life and its relation with cost benefit analysis in mortality risk reduction. First, studies...

Stated preference methods using surveys to elicit willingness to pay have been shown to suffer from hypothetical bias and scope/scale bias. Hypothetical bias usually means that willingness to pay is exaggerated in the hypothetical scenario and scope/scale bias means that there is an...

We use data from a survey of residents of five Italian cities conducted in late Spring 2004 to estimate the discount rates implicit in (a) money v. future risk reductions and (b) money v. money tradeoffs. We find that the mean personal discount rate is 2% in (a) and 8.7% in (b). The latter is...