Don Coursey，芝大Harris学院教授
[Excerpt]:
In the study, I looked at every land animal on the official list of
endangered species. Then I took the total amount of spending by the
government on each species and divided it by the population of that
species. The result was a measure of value, not value defined by its
biological importance, but a measure of how much we as a nation are
willing to spend on each member of each endangered species.
My measure of value was based on analyzing a set of political and
bureaucratic outcomes.... had no morality attached to them.
To many, my conclusions about species value seem at odds with the
basic instinct that all life is worth saving. This is what makes
public policy involving economic valuation of life so difficult. It
also makes economists unpopular at cocktail parties. The fundamental
notions of budgets, opportunity costs, and trade-offs become
complicated when they are publicly applied to the value of life. The
challenge facing the economist in these settings is to find a way of
advancing economic reality through the cloud of emotional attachment
people hold toward life.
hat is a child worth? The question itself may be repugnant. Some may
say that the value of a child's life is infinite, that it is
hierarchically more important than other values, or that it is only
appropriate to use philosophical or ethical tools to describe a
child's value. But while we may all feel that the value of a child's
life is infinite, in most cases we do not act as if that is the case.
source：http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/Courseyvalue.html#
