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Social Welfare Law Commons

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Health Law and Policy

University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Welfarism

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law

Contingent Valuation Studies And Health Policy, Matthew D. Adler Jan 2010

Contingent Valuation Studies And Health Policy, Matthew D. Adler

All Faculty Scholarship

This short comment argues that both cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) should be seen as imperfect tools for evaluating health policy. This is true, not only for extra-welfarists, but even for welfarists, since both CBA and CEA can deviate from the use of social welfare functions (SWF). A simple model is provided to illustrate the divergence between CBA, CEA, and the SWF approach. With this insight in mind, the comment considers the appropriate role of contingent-valuation studies. For full text, please see: http://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/madler/workingpapers/578A59B6d01.pdf.


Introducing A "Different Lives" Approach To The Valuation Of Health And Well-Being, Matthew D. Adler, Paul Dolan Mar 2008

Introducing A "Different Lives" Approach To The Valuation Of Health And Well-Being, Matthew D. Adler, Paul Dolan

All Faculty Scholarship

We introduce a new “different lives” survey format, which asks respondents to rank hypothetical lives described in terms of longevity, health, happiness, income, and other elements of the quality of life. In this short paper, we show that the format is of policy relevance whether a mental state, preference satisfaction or extra-welfarist account of well-being is adopted and discuss some of the advantages the format has over standard formats, such as contingent valuation surveys and QALY-type methods. An exploratory survey indicates that the format is feasible and that health and happiness might be more important than income and life expectancy.