One challenging task faced by US government agencies is determining whether the benefits of their proposed regulations justify the costs. For benefits associated with reducing the risks of premature mortality, they rely on an analytic construct—the value per statistical life (VSL)—which...

Numerous analyses of the benefits and costs of COVID-19 policies have been completed quickly as the crisis unfolds. The results frequently depend largely on the approach used to value mortality risk reductions, typically expressed as the value per statistical life (VSL). Many analyses rely on a...