Citation

Goodwin PB. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1973; 5(4): 287-293.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In various studies relating the economic costs of fatal accidents to the value of the work carried out by those involved, value of work has been measured by earned income, earned income less consumption, national income per head of the working population, or national income per head of the working population less consumption. Some theoretical implications of using each of these four different approaches are compared, and some inconsistencies noted particularly in results implied by the assumption that the value of work is measured by the wage rate. Of the four approaches, it is tentatively concluded that the adoption of national income per head of the working population has some advantages, provided that it is used to set a minimum value on the amount it is worth spending to prevent a fatal accident and not as an average "value of life" to be included in social cost benefit studies.