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Economic analyses of development
projects and policies often involve assigning an economic
value to changes in the risk of loss of human life. A
typical term used in the economic analyses is the value of
statistical life, which reflects the aggregation of
individuals' willingness to pay for fatal risk
reduction and therefore the economic value to society to
reduce the statistical incidence of premature death in the
population by one. Studies on the value of a statistical
life have been extensively conducted in the developed world;
however, few such studies can be found for developing
countries. This paper presents a study that estimates
individuals' willingness to pay for cancer risk
prevention in three provinces of China. The results imply
that the mean value of willingness to pay for a cancer
vaccine that is effective for one year is 759 yuan, with a
much lower median value of 171 yuan. The estimated income
elasticity of willingness to pay is 0.42. Using data on the
incidence of cancer illness and death in the population,
these willingness to pay figures imply that the marginal
value of reducing the anticipated incidence of cancer
mortality by one in the population is 73,000 yuan and an
average value of 795,000 yuan, which are about six and 60
times average household annual income, respectively. The big
difference between the marginal value and the average value
of fatal risk reduction corresponds to a very low estimated
elasticity of willingness to pay with respect to fatal risk
reduction. This finding challenges the validity of previous
studies of the value of a statistical life, which are mostly
based on average willingness-to-pay values of mortality risk reduction.
