The value of a statistical life under changes in ambiguity

Han Bleichrodt; Christophe Courbage; Béatrice Rey

doi:10.1007/s11166-019-09296-3

The value of a statistical life under changes in ambiguity

Han Bleichrodt^*, Christophe Courbage, Béatrice Rey

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The value of a statistical life (VSL) is a key parameter in the analysis of government policy. Most policy decisions are made under ambiguity. This paper studies the effect of changes in ambiguity perception on the VSL. We propose a definition of increases in ambiguity perception based on Ekern’s (1980) definition of increases in risk. Ambiguity aversion alone is not sufficient to lead to an increase in the VSL when the decision maker perceives more ambiguity. Our results highlight the importance of higher order ambiguity attitudes, particularly ambiguity prudence.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-15
Journal	Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
Volume	58
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11166-019-09296-3
Publication status	Published - 24 Apr 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to Kip Viscusi, Aur?lien Baillon, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. We thank Christina Stoddard for her careful proofreading. This research has benefited from the financial support of IDEXLYON from Universit? de Lyon (project INDEPTH) within the Programme Investissements d?Avenir (ANR-16-IDEX-0005).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).

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The value of a statistical life under changes in ambiguity

Abstract

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