The Value of a Statistical Life” in Economics, Law, and Policy
Reflections from the Pandemic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12161875 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark E Silverman (corresponding author), Mark Silverman |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 33-58 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rethinking Marxism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0893-5696 • E-ISSN: 1475-8059 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08935696.2024.2282395 |
| OpenAlex | W4392499418 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 35 |
Mitigation policies during the COVID-19 pandemic were justified on benefit-cost-analysis (BCA) grounds, with the value of a statistical life (VSL) measuring the benefit of saving lives. This essay argues that a BCA and VSL framework is not a value-neutral basis for pandemic policy: first because the characterization of labor-market behavior as choices merely regarding money and risk of mortality implicitly endorses those institutions that constrain such choices, as illustrated by pandemic economic conditions; and second because this characterization assumes that individual subjects have exogenous preferences, and accordingly have one "true" valuation, thus ignoring how subjectivity is constituted by capitalist institutions. Such VSL estimates in pandemic scholarship illustrate the search for a single valuation regarding elderly life, whereas the "good" of human life warrants valuation in our capacity as citizens in democratic institutions rather than as market agents. The language of overdetermination highlights the contradictory effects of the mutual constitution of institutions and the individual subject
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Economics · Law and economics · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Pandemic · Positive economics · Sociology · Statistics · Value (mathematics · Value of life · Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life · Mathematics · Medicine
The theory of capitalist development
The Economy of the Earth
The Ethical Limitations of the Market
Alienation
The feminist political economy of Covid-19
The Benefits and Costs of Using Social Distancing to Flatten the Curve for Covid-19
The Income Elasticity of the Value per Statistical Life
Feminism Confronts Homo Economicus
Overdetermined” or “Indeterminate”? Remarks on Knowledge and Class
Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject
What Price Incentives? Economists and the Environment
Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State
Evidence on Discrimination in Employment
Great Transformation
Retrospectives
Markets and Mortality
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |