Scandinavian Working Papers in Business Administration

Working Papers,
Örebro University, School of Business

No 2010:4: The value of a statistical life for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victims

Björn Sund ()
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Björn Sund: Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Postal: Örebro University, Swedish Business School, SE - 701 82 ÖREBRO, Sweden

Abstract: Background: Economic evaluation of policies regarding out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is important and we estimate the value of a statistical life (VSL) for OHCA victims. Method: Responses to a national Swedish mail survey in 2007, based on the stated-preference technique (contingent valuation) to directly elicit individuals hypothetical willingness to pay for a reduced risk of dying from OHCA. Results: VSL values are found to be higher than for comparable VSL estimates from the transport sector. A lower-bound estimate of VSL for OHCA would be around SEK 20-30 million. Conclusions: The results in this paper indicates that it is not an overestimation to use the „baseline VSL value from the transport sector (SEK 22 million) in cost-benefit analysis of OHCA policy decisions. We do not support a senior death discount for this cause of death.

Keywords: Contingent valuation; Value of a statistical life; Cardiac arrest

JEL-codes: H43; I18

24 pages, June 16, 2010

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