Pricing Lives

Pricing Lives
Author: Ariel Colonomos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2023-08-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192890557

This book discusses the equating of human lives with the material and argues that pricing lives lies at the core of the political. Indeed, as in Plato or Hobbes as well as in the Weberian ethics of responsibility, measurement is considered to be one of the central features of the political. This book argues that this measure relies primarily on two goods: human lives and interests. It also argues that the material equivalence to lives is twofold. Such equivalence is a double equation, as we pay for lives and we pay with lives. This double equation is constitutive of the measurement upon which the political equilibrium of a society depends and, as such, is constitutive of the political. The book adopts two approaches: one explanatory and the other normative. First, its purpose is to explain the nexus between existential goods and material goods and includes a thorough analysis of several case studies drawn from contemporary politics both domestic and international. Second, it discusses normatively the material valuation of human lives and the human value of material goods. The book relies upon interdisciplinary thinking as the material equivalent to lives is not only extremely relevant for political theory and philosophy, it is of great relevance for law. Great works of literature such as Shakespeare's plays are also excellent political illustrations of the importance of pricing lives we can learn from. Value attribution is an important question in the social sciences, notably in sociology, history and international relations.

Pricing Lives

Pricing Lives
Author: W. Kip Viscusi
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 069120859X

How society’s undervaluing of life puts all of us at risk—and the groundbreaking economic measure that can fix it Like it or not, sometimes we need to put a monetary value on people's lives. In the past, government agencies used the financial "cost of death" to monetize the mortality risks of regulatory policies, but this method vastly undervalued life. Pricing Lives tells the story of how the government came to adopt an altogether different approach--the value of a statistical life, or VSL—and persuasively shows how its more widespread use could create a safer and more equitable society for everyone. In the 1980s, W. Kip Viscusi used the method to demonstrate that the benefits of requiring businesses to label hazardous chemicals immensely outweighed the costs. VSL is the risk-reward trade-off that people make about their health when considering risky job choices. With it, Viscusi calculated how much more money workers would demand to take on hazardous jobs, boosting calculated benefits by an order of magnitude. His current estimate of the value of a statistical life is $10 million. In this book, Viscusi provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of economic and policy efforts to price lives, including controversial topics such as whether older people's lives are worth less and richer people's lives are worth more. He explains why corporations need to abandon the misguided cost-of-death approach, how the courts can profit from increased application of VSL in assessing liability and setting damages, and how other countries consistently undervalue risks to life. Pricing Lives proposes sensible economic guideposts to foster more protective policies and greater levels of safety in the United States and throughout the world.

The Pricing of Progress

The Pricing of Progress
Author: Eli Cook
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674982541

How did Americans come to quantify their society’s progress and well-being in units of money? In today’s GDP-run world, prices are the standard measure of not only our goods and commodities but our environment, our communities, our nation, even our self-worth. The Pricing of Progress traces the long history of how and why we moderns adopted the monetizing values and valuations of capitalism as an indicator of human prosperity while losing sight of earlier social and moral metrics that did not put a price on everyday life. Eli Cook roots the rise of economic indicators in the emergence of modern capitalism and the contested history of English enclosure, Caribbean slavery, American industrialization, economic thought, and corporate power. He explores how the maximization of market production became the chief objective of American economic and social policy. We see how distinctly capitalist quantification techniques used to manage or invest in railroad corporations, textile factories, real estate holdings, or cotton plantations escaped the confines of the business world and seeped into every nook and cranny of society. As economic elites quantified the nation as a for-profit, capitalized investment, the progress of its inhabitants, free or enslaved, came to be valued according to their moneymaking abilities. Today as in the nineteenth century, political struggles rage over who gets to determine the statistical yardsticks used to gauge the “health” of our economy and nation. The Pricing of Progress helps us grasp the limits and dangers of entrusting economic indicators to measure social welfare and moral goals.

Reviving Rationality

Reviving Rationality
Author: Michael A. Livermore
Publisher:
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0197539440

Politics and regulation -- A threatening synthesis -- Staying in bounds -- A retreat from reason -- The illusion of costs without benefits -- Erasing public health science -- Resurrecting discredited models -- Ignoring indirect benefits -- Trivializing climate change -- Manipulating transfers -- Future directions -- Improving the guardrails.

Policy Challenges of the Heterogeneity of the Value of Statistical Life

Policy Challenges of the Heterogeneity of the Value of Statistical Life
Author: W. Kip Viscusi
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2011
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1601984766

Policy Challenges of the Heterogeneity of the Value of Statistical Life focuses on the variation in VSL both across different studies in the academic literature and in different policy contexts. These differences often reflect quite legitimate heterogeneity in the valuation of risk. This review of the academic literature is coupled with an examination of the policy arena's use of the VSL methodology. Government agencies adopted the VSL approach to valuing risk regulations almost three decades ago. As government agencies continue to refine their benefit assessment procedure, the potential role of heterogeneity of VSL has moved to the forefront of these debates. Sections II through IV review various analytical underpinnings of the VSL methodology, particularly focusing on labor market estimates. Subsequent sections consider different sources of heterogeneity, how these sources should influence benefit assessments, and how they have been used in actual policy contexts.

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Dementia

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Dementia
Author: Brent, Robert J.
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2022-04-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1839105763

This ground-breaking book expertly brings together the many effective dementia interventions to reduce the symptoms of this debilitating condition and also, for the first time, a Cost-Benefit Analysis of those interventions to establish whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Focussing on new interventions such as years of education, medicare eligibility, hearing aids and vision correction, Robert Brent also takes an innovative look at the need to reduce elder abuse and initiate an international convention for human rights.

50th Celebratory Volume

50th Celebratory Volume
Author: Solomon W. Polachek
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2023-01-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1804551252

This 50th Celebratory Research in Labor Economics volume contains ten original and innovative articles each written by stellar senior scholars in labor economics addressing aspects of worker well-being.

Business Liability and Economic Damages, Second Edition

Business Liability and Economic Damages, Second Edition
Author: Scott D. Gilbert
Publisher: Business Expert Press
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2020-06-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1949443183

This book covers the subject of economic damages and its role in insurance claims, lawsuits, and injunctions against businesses. Businesses exist to provide goods and services to customers, and in doing so, they take risks. Among these risks is the chance of losing money in lawsuits filed by customers, employees, and others negatively impacted by the business. Insurance provides some protection against these liabilities, but lawsuits still take their toll. This book covers the subject of economic damages and its role in insurance claims, lawsuits, and injunctions against businesses. This book will help the reader to identify economic damages as a component of business liability, describe the business risk posed by economic damages, explain some key determinants of economic damages, and estimate economic damages and business loss in a variety of cases.

Issues for Debate in American Public Policy

Issues for Debate in American Public Policy
Author: CQ Researcher,
Publisher: CQ Press
Total Pages: 985
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1544369247

Written by award-winning CQ Researcher journalists, this annual collection of nonpartisan and thoroughly researched reports focuses on 16 hot-button policy issues. With reports ranging from racial profiling to prescription drug costs, the Twentieth Edition of Issues for Debate in American Public Policy promotes in-depth discussion, facilitates further research, and helps readers formulate their own positions on crucial policy issues. And because it is CQ Researcher, the policy reports are expertly researched and written, showing readers all sides of an issue. Because this annual volume comes together just months before publication, all selections are brand new and explore some of today’s most significant American public policy issues, including: racial profiling, populism and party politics, student debt, the gig economy, the future of the coal industry, prescription drug costs, and much more!