Altruism, fertility, and the value of children: Health policy evaluation and intergenerational welfare

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Birchenall, Javier A.; Soares, Rodrigo R.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2008.06.005
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 280-295
• 关键词: Value of life; mortality; fertility; altruism; Intergenerational welfare; Willingness to pay

摘要

This paper accounts for the value of children and future generations in the evaluation of health policies. This is achieved through the incorporation of altruism and fertility in a value of life type of framework. We are able to express adults' willingness to pay for changes in child mortality and also to incorporate the welfare of future generations in the evaluation of current policies. Our model clarifies a series of puzzles from the literature on the value of life and on intergenerational welfare comparisons. We show that, by incorporating altruism and fertility into the analysis of the recent U.S. experience, the estimated welfare gain of a young adult from reductions in mortality easily doubles. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.