Estimating the Value of Statistical Life in China: A Contingent Valuation Study in Six Representative Cities

Incorporating the health impacts into all kinds of policy decisions has become the shared expectations of policymakers and the public, hoping to obtain the most significant health benefits with the least policy costs. The value of statistical life (VSL), which represents the additional cost that individuals are willing to reduce the risk of death, is a core tool for monetizing health impacts. Though VSL has been widely studied internationally, the existing VSL research in China has limitations on regional representativeness, questionnaire design, and discussion of influencing factors. To fill these research gaps, we selected six representative cities in six typical provinces based on cluster analysis and conducted a face-to-face contingent valuation interview (n=3936) from March 7, 2019, to September 30, 2019, using the hypothetical vaccine as the payment tool followed by double-bounded dichotomous choice questions. The respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce the death risk from air pollution was elicited and used to quantify the VSL of typical urban residents. Also, we discussed the determinants of WTP and VSL in comparison with previous studies. Results showed that the WTP varied from 455-763 yuan, corresponding to a VSL range of 3.79-6.36 million yuan (price in 2019) in different cities. Therefore, the VSL in China in 2019 was estimated to be 5.10 million yuan, which was 1.2-41 times of the previous studies (in 2019 price). It was also proven that influencing factors such as monthly expenditure levels, environmental concerns, risk attitudes, and assumed market acceptance, which had been seldom discussed in previous studies, had significant impacts on the WTP and the VSL. There were substantial differences in the influencing factors of residents' WTP in different cities, which provided a reasonable explanation for the large gap of the VSL among six representative cities.