Valuing Life_ A Plea for Disaggregation

2004] VALUING LIFE 425
has some of the same characteristics as a policy that requires people
to buy Volvos. In principle, the government should force exchanges
only on terms that people find acceptable, at least if it is genuinely
concerned with their welfare.
Note, once again, that the argument for using WTP does not
imply satisfaction with the existing distribution of wealth. The
problem with forced exchanges is that they do nothing to alter
existing distributions. In fact they make poor people worse off,
requiring them to use their limited resources for something that they
do not want to buy.
Does the easy case seem implausibly unrealistic? In many
contexts, it certainly is. The costs of air pollution regulation, for
example, are not fully borne by its beneficiaries. 150
But for workers’
compensation regulation, for example, the situation is very different:
with the enactment of workers’ compensation programs,
nonunionized workers faced a dollar-for-dollar wage reduction,
corresponding almost perfectly to the expected value of the benefits
that they received. 151 For drinking water regulation, something similar
is involved. The cost of regulation is passed onto consumers in the
form of higher water bills. 152
Hence the easy case finds a number of
real-world analogues.
2. Objections. There are several possible objections to the use
of WTP to calculate VSL. They point to some important
qualifications, but none of them is a convincing refutation of the
straightforward argument.
a. Adaptive Preferences and “Miswanting.” The first objection
emphasizes the possibility that people’s preferences have adapted to
existing opportunities, including deprivation. 153 Perhaps people show a
(1988) (arguing that occupational health and safety regulations are not an effective method of
redistribution).
150. Matthew E. Kahn, The Beneficiaries of Clean Air Act Regulation, REGULATION, Spring
2001, at 34, 35–38.
151. PRICE V. FISHBACK & SHAWN EVERETT KANTOR, A PRELUDE TO THE WELFARE
STATE 69, app. D at 231–38 (2000).
152. See Sunstein, supra note 54, at 2271 (noting that a particular proposal to increase
drinking water quality would have resulted in an annual increase of $30 in the water bills for
most households).
153. See JON ELSTER, SOUR GRAPES 109–10 (1983) (defining “adaptive preferences” as
what happens when “people tend to adjust their aspirations to their possibilities”); Adler &