Abstract
Mortality is one of the main sources of well-being losses across the world. Cross-country well-being comparisons are drastically affected when mortality is included, as highlighted by Becker et al. (2005) or Jones and Klenow (2016). In a similar vein, Murphy and Topel (2006) estimate that the life-expectancy gains realized in the US over the period 1970-2000 were worth about half of US GDP at the end of that period. In spite of its importance, mortality is often overlooked when monitoring well-being. This omission is in fact the norm for poverty measures. Poverty measures that ignore mortality make “biased” well-being comparisons for two reasons. First, they simply do not account for the high intrinsic value of longevity, i.e., being alive. Second, they are in fact perversely reduced by the death of poor individuals, which constitutes a “mortality paradox” (Kanbur and Mukherjee, 2007). As a result, their “biased” comparisons prevent from properly monitoring low well-being. This issue leads to sub-optimal policy-making because poverty measures are regularly used for guiding and evaluating policies. Clearly, budget allocations that affect mortality should account for their mortality consequences. The primary objective of this research project is to propose/calibrate welfare measures that integrate longevity in a way that is consistent with how most people would make trade-offs between their own incomes and longevity. For this purpose, we will carry out an online survey with participants in a sample of countries from different income categories and continents (e.g. USA, South Africa, Ethiopia, Indonesia, France, Brazil, Egypt, Philippines, Nigeria, Mexico and India). The survey probes the attitudes of respondents, i.e., their stated preferences. The surveys will allow us to estimate the functional form and parameters of the Social Welfare Function that respondents implicitly use when making trade-offs involving income or lifespan.