Like promoting the global warming scam.

@Eszett – basically there’s a whole body of literature on the subject going back to the 60′s, that better qualified people than Alan Wilkinson have turned their minds to, and the ‘willingness to pay’ methodology is the best proxy anyone has come up with so far to capture the full dimensions of the worth of a human life.

The value of a life to the community is presumably the NPV of future earnings and unpaid contributions less costs. For some people that is a lot and for others it is negative. Essentially it is unknowable.

From the point of view of Government expenditure they can look at the available money and find the most quality of life – years they can save with that money. In other words, compare the costs of saving lives in different ways to determine priorities. But the allocation of money to that purpose compared with other uses is a political decision, not an economic one, just as is an individual’s choice of expenditure on charities and a Government’s choice of how much money to spend on overseas aid for a similar purpose (but usually assuming a far lower SVOL).

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life

From what you are saying, I gather you think that the SVOL is overstated.

It is indexed though to the average hourly wages.
But I agree it would be interesting to see if that has changed or not and whether the indexing on average hourly wages is sufficient.

Maybe comparing it to how often other countries do similar surveys and how often and also check how big the impact is there.

However I am not quite sure that you can call it “laughable”.

There are literally millions of good causes out there to throw money at.

It is partially based on a fairly outdated survey (1991) that attempted to assess how much people would be prepared to pay to avoid being killed or serously injured in a car accident. I don’t think the methodology per se is fundamentally flawed, although I do think they need to redo the survey to see if peoples’ willigness to pay to prevent their death or injury by car accident has changed since 1991.

Science is bad when:
1. The government thinks it can’t afford it, and
2. It’s something the government disagrees with.

So, yes to tinkering with youth mental health, but no to lots of other things, like a harm-reduction approach to drug use or funding transport projects on the basis of cost-benefit analysis.

Alan: growing up is hardly a new problem. So we cannot attribute problems to “growing up”. We can attribute them to the environment in which kids grow up. That’s the factor that has changed. And that’s the factor that won’t be addressed.

In which case there should certainly be some resulting publications to refute this currently “robust science”.

If all gambling and drinking was banned do you think that would solve all mental health problems?

But rather than just rail at the darkness here are a few proven tips to help this tragic issue – give them a faith to live by. Our spirits cannot handle a vacuum.
– Get married and bring up your children in a stable marriage environment.
– Let’s be against suicide. How can we consider youth suicide a tragedy when we consider euthanasia a human right?
– Don’t take drugs and don’t let your kids take drugs either.
– Do not glamorise the funerals of those that have committed suicide. There is a direct causal link between those who go to the funeral of a teenager and those who kill themselves, often the next day. The copycat syndrome is absolutely real.

These are good initiatives. And look we haven’t spent a cent of taxpayer money!