Valuing Life_ A Plea for Disaggregation

2004] VALUING LIFE 407
that the risks associated with cancer produce a higher WTP than
other kinds of risk. 85 For example, Professors Hammitt and Liu find
that in Taiwan, WTP to eliminate a cancer risk is about one-third
higher than WTP to avoid a risk of a similar, chronic degenerative
disease. 86
Some contingent valuation studies suggest that people are
willing to pay twice as much to prevent a cancer death as an
instantaneous death. 87
People seem to have a special fear of cancer,
and they seem to be willing to pay more to prevent a cancer death
than a sudden, unanticipated death, or a death from heart disease. 88
The “cancer premium” might be produced by the “dread” nature of
cancer; it seems well established that dreaded risks produce special
social concern, holding the statistical risk constant. 89
To be sure, existing evidence on this count is not unambiguous.
One study of occupational exposures does not find a significantly
higher VSL for cancer risks. 90
But that study assumes that
occupational cancers account for 10 to 20 percent of all cancer
deaths—an amount that is almost certainly too high. If occupational
exposures account for 5 percent of all cancers—a far more realistic
number—then the VSL for cancer risks may be as high as $12 million,
about double the amount that the EPA now uses. The current
findings conflict; 91
but in principle, the VSL figures should be riskspecific,
and existing evidence generally supports the view that cancer
risks produce an unusually high VSL.
85. Richard L. Revesz, Environmental Regulation, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and the
Discounting of Human Lives, 99 COLUM. L. REV. 941, 972–74 (1999); Hammitt & Liu, supra
note 11, at 74.
86. Id. at 84.
87. Id. at 81.
88. See George Tolley et al., State-of-the-Art Health Values, in VALUING HEALTH FOR
POLICY 323, 339–40 (George Tolley et al. eds., 1994) (arguing that the value of avoiding a
mortality risk preceded by morbidity includes the value of avoiding an instantaneous death plus
the value of avoiding the preceding years afflicted with the particular condition).
89. See Revesz, supra note 85, at 972–74 (discussing “the dread aspects of carcinogenic
deaths” and their impact on WTP studies). See generally PAUL SLOVIC, THE PERCEPTION OF
RISK (2000) (exploring how risk perception affects individual behavior).
90. See Viscusi & Aldy, supra note 10, at 57 (finding that estimates of values for cancer
mortality and accidental death were similar); see also Wesley A. Magat et al., A Reference
Lottery Metric for Valuing Health, 42 MGMT. SCI. 1118, 1129 (1996) (finding no difference
between valuations of cancer deaths and auto accident deaths).
91. See Viscusi & Aldy, supra note 10, at 57 (contrasting the United Kingdom Health and
Safety Executive’s use of a higher VSL for cancer deaths with the recommendation of the
EPA’s SAB not to make any “dread” modification to VSL for certain risks).